Save Width Profiles

I love using Illustrator’s Width Profiles (CS5 and up) but I hate accidentally deleting the custom widths I’ve created. There’s no great way to save custom profiles like you do when saving other custom libraries like brushes, swatches, and graphic styles. The best way I’ve found to save them is by applying the custom profile to an object and saving a graphic style. From there you can save a custom graphic style library.

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4 thoughts on “Save Width Profiles

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  2. Hi

    I create a line using Pencil tool (N) and manipulate with Width tool (Shift-W) then I drag it ‎into Graphic Styles panel, after that I select my line and open up Stroke panel and then ‎open Profile pop-up menu at the bottom and click Save button. Then I draw a rectangle ‎‎(with 10pt stroke) and duplicate it (now I have 2 rectangles). At first I apply my profile ‎width from Graphic Styles panel to the first rectangle, after that I apply my profile width ‎that I save in Stroke panel to the second rectangle. Now I expect both rectangles are exact ‎and similar in width, but the first rectangle that I apply profile width from Graphic Styles is ‎thicker (47.189pt)!?! than the second rectangle (10pt/default) that I apply profile width ‎from Profile popup menu of Stroke panel! Why? Where method is right to save and apply ‎to objects? I confused, could you help me to find out it and tell me where I mistook?‎

    Thanks for sharing great tips
    Masoud

    • The Stroke Panel Save works good for saving and applying widths within the same document. But when you want to use these same widths again in another documents, you have to copy and paste object with the desired width into a new document. This might not seem like a lot of works, but if you have hundreds of docs and don’t remember where you created your custom widths, it can be a big headache. With the Graphic Style method, you can just open a library with your custom widths you have previously saved. It’s a little faster for me.

      I’m not really sure why you have the 47pt instead of 10pt. I’m sure you can just change it back to 10pt and even re-create the style. Again, this method might not be needed for everyone.

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