There’s a better workaround with Appearance panel (the one everyone needs to learn).
Assigning a new fill to live text (no outlining needed) and putting it above (for 'stroke inside') or below (for 'stroke outside') and then applying the Offset Path effect (negative for 'inside' and positive for 'outside') is a better option, with keeping text live, editable in any moment.

But — and I suggest that’s the reason for getting these disabled for live text — the text gets hinted, to stay sharp in screen. Once outlined, the hinting dies. And the way inside/outside stroke is built doesn’t play with hinted text well — the stroke wouldn’t be hinted well. The workaround I propose would lead to the same result, especially when the text is small, where hinting is stronger noticeable: text is hinted, the offset path isn’t.

To workaround this workaround (welcome, Alice, to the rabbit hole), we can apply another effect right at the top of the appearance stack.

You can refer to the file attached.

My workaround: Type text > outline about double the thickness you desire > clone layer. Revert this cloned layer to no outline. This layer will crop mask off the inner outline colour of the bottom layer. Adjust the outline thickness if needed (bottom layer). Lock the two layers together.

@INKs Graphic Design, this positioning of stroke is a default appearance in all documents created with a Web document profile.
There are several ways to deal with it.
1. If a document is already created, you can update the Default Graphic Style. Click the chip with this name in the Graphics Styles panel, create something like a rectangle, open the Stroke panel, toggle the Align Stroke to Center, drag-n-drop the rectangle with Opt/Alt held over the style’s chip to update it. This would force all new objects to have the alignment changed (unless they inherit the appearance
2. Alter the Web profile. The instruction how to do it is posted here: https://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/kb/create-custom-new-document-profile.html — note these would reset when Ai gets updated. You can create your own profiles though, and these would stay. In a document profile file of your choice make the same thing described above.
Or do I get it wrong and you meant something else?

I would really like outside text, but in the meantime, please fix where I can add the stroke in the Appearance panel. It defaults to INSIDE, and I can't see where to change it to outside or at least default to center so I can pump it up.

This seems like such a basic function, seems silly it's not fixed!!

I hadn't noticed the problem before. And I send a video for bug.
Mac OS 15.5 (24F74)
Illustrator 29.6.1

Align Stroke to the outside of typography is essential for creating readable typography.
Why is it grayed out?

Under Appearance, I can no longer move a stroke below the fill and then enlarge it to grow the stroke behind the fill. Inline for some reason is set and prevents me from customizing it. When did that change? I used to be able to apply styles to live text and play with stroke/fill order to customize looks.

I know we can use the Appearance Palette, but please, make it easy to use outside strokes for text, since it is used a lot, and the appearnce palette is not the best part of Illustrator, to put it mildly.

@EgorChistyakov

I use the Appearance palette All. The. Time. :) It's much easier to see what exactly is going on with something.

I voted for this, and will go vote for the other one. Thanks for the heads up that it exists.

For those who don't know... this was a thing for many decades... the strokes on texts worked back then exactly how they do on shapes today. Still don't understand why they changed it and why it's still not fixed.

It's unacceptable that this can't be done normally, because Illustrator is technologically capable of doing it: simply set a shape to have the stroke on the outside and SAVE IT AS A GRAPHIC STYLE. Then you can use that graphic style on text. It works fine. You can do the same for inside strokes, too. The only thing is that it will be stuck like that, so you'll have to clear appearance settings to change it.

InDesign’s solution to Outside of Text is just a trickery. Judging by a PDF output, what it secretly does it making the stroke twice as thick and puts it behind the characters... A trick that is possible only due to the rudimentary appearance system InDesign has.
Illustrator’s approach is both more powerful, but doesn’t support complex appearance for live characters — this includes inside (especially) and outside strokes

There is s separate, more global request for that:
Allow to set the stroke below the fill in appearance panel for text characters — http://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/333657/suggestions/46545787

...but it’s less popular, since users don’t really know Appearance (sadly) and the connection between the problems is hard to grasp.
Perhaps we should get these merged? What do you think?

It has been years. Please fix this.

Hmm. I do not recall it ever working for text...
I know the alignment of stroke for open paths got recently broken in Beta 28.5.0.78, but then it got fixed in 28.6.0.54.
The buttons though are still not disabled and are clickable — but again, I do not remember them ever working.

As far as I know, the alignment of a stroke is considered to be complex appearance, while the characters in live text can only have a basic one. So it’s more an Appearance and Text problem, rather than Stroke one...

The corresponding request never had a status change: http://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/333657/suggestions/31416682
Which version exactly was supporting it? Please remind me!

This is at least that second time that you have enabled stroke alignment on live text only to disable it in the next update. ENOUGH ALREADY. Obviously stroke alignment CAN BE DONE on live text, so stop fiddling around and just leave it enabled. The workaround is to create a graphic style with an inner or outer aligned stroke and then use the alt-key to ADD that graphic style to the existing appearance, but that's a hassle.

Did you ever solve this? I'm having the same exact problem.

I think this is pretty essential for most designers and since it’s thought that 3D and materials is being brought into Illustrator (still not sure about the performance of all that) looks forward to being able to put materials onto fill, strokes, etc.

Extremely needed

I'm surprised this is still an issue. It was brought up back in 2017 and still nothing. Remember back in 2012 on CS6 this actually worked? How is that Adobe can have something 8 years old be more updated, and they were the ones who originally had the feature? I'm still baffled by what Adobe has prioritized as more important than fixing issues that are this old. I'm constantly finding issues through several different applications that have lasted multiple years without a fix. So many free options these days and it's getting worse not better.