Expanding an Inside / Outside stroke creates barely open paths
- Create a rectangle
- Apply a thick stroke to it and change its alignment to Inside or Outside
- Expand Appearance for the shape
- Deselect the shape
- Grab Direct selection and carefully move the corner points at the top right, for both paths
It turns out Illustrator doesn’t keep these tidy! One is cut open, another has a doubled point! It leads to a problems later, when we try, e.g. to make corners rounded, or apply effects.
A current workaround is to apply Add (as Pathfinder operation or an effect) to the stroke, separately form the fill... and it’s taxing for memory, since we have to remember about hundreds of other peculiarities Ai has.

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ajabon grinsmith commented
I have posted about the inner paths being open paths in “Outline Stroke”.
It seems to be due to almost the same cause, but this one does not occur with objects created with the shape tools, such as rectangle and oval. -
ajabon grinsmith commented
Tried versions: 27.9.6 and 29.5.1 macOS 14.7.5
Reproduction Procedure:
1. Create a close path in a new document with the Pen tool.
2. Change the position of the Stroke (Align to inside/outside).
3. Execute the menu command “Outline Stroke”
4. The inside of the created compound path becomes an open path.Ideal Results
All “Outline Stroke” results should be close paths.The attached figure shows the path at the starting point slightly moved after “Outline Stroke” was executed for confirmation.
<にほんご>
線の位置をカスタマイズして「線のアウトライン」でオープンパスが作成される
試したバージョン: 27.9.6 と 29.5.1 macOS 14.7.5
再現手順:
1. 新規ドキュメントにペンツールでクローズパスを作成.
2. 線の位置を変更(内側/外側に揃える)
3. メニューコマンド「パスのアウトライン」を実行
4. 作成された複合パスの内側がオープンパスになってしまう理想の結果
“パスのアウトライン”の実行結果はすべてクローズパスであること.添付図は“パスのアウトライン”実行後に,確認のため始点のパスを少し動かしてみた状態.
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Another workaround would be checking the artwork with VectroFirstAid plugin panel. It detects these cuts and heals them, in bulk. Plus we can schedule it to make regular checks...
But we all understand this should not happen in the first place. Somebody just did s sloppy job with these paths.