How To Outline Text In Canva
Creating an outline on text has always been a great way to make it more eye-catching. But for some reason, until recently, it hasn’t been easy to do with Canva. Now that has changed and there’s an Effect for that!
Let’s learn how to outline text in Canva, both the new way and the old way, because you never know when you want something more than the Effect offers.
How to use the Outline Effect
The simplest way to outline text is to use the Effect. Create your design with standard text in the font you want. Then click the Effects panel on the top menu.
The first setting you can use is called ‘Hollow’ and this transforms the text into an empty outline. You can vary the thickness of the line which defaults to the midpoint.
You can then duplicate the text, change the colour and remove the Effect. Move it into place exactly behind the original version and you can create an outline look. If you move the solid text to the back, the outline will be stronger but remember, that slider gives you more control.
The Splice effect
The other effect is called ‘Splice’ and this is a handy one. Select your standard text and add the Effect. The splice will apply a lighter shade to the background effect based on the main text colour but you can change this in the effect panel.
You can also move the direction of the splice to achieve an outline style. By making it to ‘0’ it will be directly behind but a little offset.
You can also use the Offset slider to move where the shadow text is. It defaults to mid-point which offsets it below the text. Move it to ‘0’ and you get an outline effect.
The traditional way of creating an outline
These Effects make it simple and quick to add an outline but there may be times or situations where you want to make it manually. That’s still possible.
Make your text then make a copy of it. Change the colour of one of the text layers that is going to create the outline. Move it into position behind the text and offset it by one or two pixels either above and to one side or below and to one side. Use the arrow buttons for this to get the fine-tuning.
Multiply the outline layer again and move it into position in another direction. You can have as much of this as you want but you’ll need to keep multiplying until the whole of the background has an even line of the outline shade.
It isn’t the easiest thing to do which is no doubt why Canva brought in the effects! But if you want more control, you can keep adding layers and shifting them until you get just the right look.
Outlining text in Canva
The Effects options definitely get my vote when it comes to outlining text in Canva but you can still play around with the traditional method if you want. Outlining is a great style that works on lots of different designs and allows you to easily personalise templates too.
How can you use outlining in your designs?
