Outline and inline lettering in Font by Zaweba

Hollow letters have a long history on signs, shop fronts and posters. They look lighter than solid letters of the same size, and they leave room for colour behind them. Inline letters go a step further: they keep the solid shape but carve a thin line inside it, which gives a crafted, engraved look.

Both effects live in one operation of the Font by Zaweba style stack, simply called Outline. It has two modes. In outline mode the letters become hollow, with a border whose thickness you set from 4 to 120 units. In inline mode the letters stay solid but get a line drawn inside them, with a distance from the edge and a line thickness you choose.

Why border thickness matters

Units here are font units, and this app works at 1000 to the em. A border of 4 is very fine, and on a light font it will look delicate. A border of 120 is heavy, and on a light font there may not be enough letter to hollow out at all. The sensible range depends on how heavy your letters are, which is why it helps to set the weight first and then the outline.

Think about where the font will be used too. A thin border looks crisp on a big poster and can break up when printed small or viewed on a low resolution screen. A thicker border survives being small, but leaves less space inside, so letters with small counters like e and a can start to look cramped. The live preview, with its waterfall from 12 to 200, is the place to see how your border behaves at every size.

How inline differs

Inline looks quite different from outline even though the settings are similar. The letter stays solid and a line runs inside it, parallel to the edge. With a small distance and a thin line, it gives a chiselled, engraved feel, close to the sort of lettering you see on certificates and old bank notes. With a larger distance and a thicker line, it becomes bolder and more like a sign painter's double line.

The two settings work together. Distance from the edge decides how much solid letter shows outside the line; line thickness decides how strong the line is. Keep the distance large enough that the line doesn't merge with the edge at small sizes.

Where it sits in the stack

The style stack is an ordered list, and outline needs a shape to work on. Weight, width, rounding and the shears all shape the letter first. Serifs and decorations attach to it. Outline then turns whatever has been built so far hollow, or adds an inline to it. That's why the order matters: put outline after serifs and the serifs are hollow too, which is usually what you want for a consistent look.

Outline and pattern fill are close neighbours. Pattern fill has its own pattern with border mode, which gives a hollow letter filled with a pattern. If what you want is an empty outline, use Outline; if you want the inside filled with dots or stripes, pattern fill is the better tool.

Using the Outline preset

The Outline preset sets up a hollow font in one click, and you can adjust it from there like any other preset. It's a good way to see what the operation does before you build your own combination.

Common mistakes

The usual one is outlining a thin font. If the strokes are only a little wider than the border, the hollow middle almost disappears, and the font looks like a smudged version of the solid one. Raise the weight until the letters have real room inside them.

Another is forgetting about joins. Where strokes meet, in letters such as k, x and the middle of W, the hollow inside can get pinched. Corner rounding, especially on inner corners, often helps here. If a particular letter still looks wrong, the glyph editor lets you adjust it.

Finally, check the export warnings. When you export, Font by Zaweba checks the files for overlaps and contour direction and lists anything it finds. Hollow letters have more contours than solid ones, so it's worth reading that list rather than skipping past it.