How can I put a Fontwork's outline behind the text?

[foxoftheasterisk]

I’m trying to create simple outlined text using a Fontwork, but the outline is drawing in front of the text.

This creates some annoying caps on the letters, as well as occluding the letters entirely if the outline is large enough, as shown:

How can I put the outline behind the text to avoid these issues? I’ve looked for an option, but I can’t find it.

Edit: Windows 11, LibreOffice 7.6.2.1
character cards - WIP.odg (915.3 KB)

I’m not sure what you mean about “how I generated the Fontwork” - I added it from the Insert menu? (using the “Simple” style.) Is there another way?
I did adjust the properties afterwards, of course - changed the font, text spacing, line weight, and colors. All that was done with the sidebar.

[Hrbrgr]

Please upload your file here so that someone can view and examine it. Thank you.

[Grantler]

… and - in addition to @Hrbrgr’s request - tell us how you generated the Fontwork shape.
Add info about OS version and LO version. - Cheers

[foxoftheasterisk]

edited to add that information

[EarnestAl]

One way would be to copy and paste the same object and apply the outline to one, then place it behind the other.

Another is just to apply a Glow effect (Sidebar > Properties > Effect) with a suitable radius and colour, say 3 pt, to the text. I don’t know how this looks to you as I don’t have Dax font.
character cards - WIP103270_EA.odg (916.5 KB)

[foxoftheasterisk]

I considered both these options already, but neither is ideal. The glow is fuzzy, where I want a hard outline. Meanwhile, the dual-Fontwork solution looks perfect - but it requires two objects. Given that I’m creating a template which will be edited many many times, I’d strongly prefer to have it working with only one object.

I’ll use one of these if I have to, but I’d much prefer a single-object hard outline if possible.

[Hrbrgr]

@foxoftheasterisk

but neither is ideal.

Should it look something like this?

[foxoftheasterisk]

Close, but not quite—you can see that the outlines are narrowing and rounding the letters. It’s fine at that size, with that font, but if you increased the outline size it’d be an issue—and the same settings with the font I’m using just about cuts the 'R’s in half.

I was looking for something more like this:

(Which I achieved by putting two Fontworks on top of each other. To be honest, I’m not too happy with the cancelling out that happens where there’s overlap, but that feels a bit too fussy.)

It turns out that, at the size I’m making these, “glow” is mostly indistinguishable from outline. So this has become academic; I have a solution that’s good enough.

But it still bothers me that what I was looking for doesn’t seem to be available—it really seems like this should be, not just doable, but easy! All I want is the text rendered exactly like normal, but with a solid outline around it. It doesn’t even have to be done with a Fontwork, if there’s another option (though if there’s an option for outlines on regular text, I haven’t found it).

[Regina]

If you do no longer need to edit the text of the fontwork shape, then you can convert the shape ‘to Contour’. You get a group with two objects, one is the filling and the other is the outline. Enter the group and arrange the filling to front, or arrange the outline one level back.