The Stroke panel lets you set the properties of lines and curves, as well as shape outlines and arrowhead styles.
About the Stroke panel
A line or curve is a stroke which can take on various properties, e.g. width, colour, opacity, line style, etc. Similarly, any shape can take a stroke around its outline using the same properties.
Options
The following settings are available in the panel:
Style—select a line style button to change how the line is drawn. Choose from None, Solid Line Style, Dash Line Style and Texture Line Style, respectively. The last option is available for opened Designer documents that have objects with vector brush textures applied as a stroke.
Width—drag to change the width (thickness) of the selected line.
When the Dash Line Style is selected, the following controls are also available (further Dash and Gap values are exposed via horizontal scrolling under the settings):
Cap—select one of the cap style buttons (Round, Butt, or Square) to vary the contour of the line end.
Join—select one of the join style buttons (Round, Bevel, or Mitre) to determine the contour of the corner where two lines intersect, e.g on the corner of a shape outline.
Align—controls where the stroke is placed in relation to the object edge, i.e. centered, or on its inside or outside.
Mitre Limit—sets the length of the extension of Mitre joins to create either sharp or flat corners.
Order—Select one of the order buttons to control where the stroke is placed in relation to the object. Draw stroke behind hides the inner half of the object's outline behind a closed shape—useful with very small objects or when shrinking outlined text. Draw stroke in front always reveals the whole line.
Scale with Object—enable to scale both line and shape together when resizing a closed shape. Uncheck to keep line width constant.
Pressure—when Solid Line Style is selected, the pressure chart manually sets the pressure profile of a stroke when an Apple Pencil is not used/unpaired. Tap end nodes, then drag down the blue node(s); add additionally node(s) by tapping on the line and drag upwards to form a profile. Tapping the chart lets you reset it. When an Apple Pencil is used the chart can't be edited.
Dash Pattern—when Dash Line Style is selected, the three 'Dash - Gap' pairings displayed will allow you to set the design of the dot or dash. (See Draw lines, curves and shapes.)
Phase—when Dash Line Style is selected, this option allows you to manually offset the starting point of the dash design if Balanced Dash Pattern is disabled.
Balanced Dash Pattern—when enabled, the dash pattern is applied to the shape's outline so it appears seamless along the outline and is symmetrical at all corners. When disabled, the pattern is drawn from the first drawn node of the curve or closed shape, or the geometric shape's 'start' node.
Start/End—Select an arrowhead style for the start/end stops of the stroke from the pop-up menu.
Percentage—with styles selected, you can enter a percentage to adjust the size of your selected arrowheads in proportion with the stroke width.
Link—when enabled, the selected Start and End arrowheads are adjusted in proportion to each other, maintaining the current aspect ratio. When disabled, they can be adjusted independently.
Place arrow within the line and Place arrow at the end of the line—choose where to position the start and end styles from.
Swap arrowhead with tail—select to swap the Start and End arrowhead styles.
Clear arrowhead—select to clear arrowhead settings.