How to Specify Outline Thickness and Fill/Outline Colors?

Question

This question asks for an extension of this answer. Consider the code:

\documentclass[12pt]{book} 
\usepackage{xcolor}
\usepackage{cabin}
\usepackage{scalefnt}

\input pdf-trans
\font\f=qx-lmr10    at 60pt
\newbox\qbox

\def\outline#1{%
\setbox\qbox\hbox{\f #1}%
\boxgs{2 Tr .8 g}{}\copy\qbox
}%
\pagestyle{empty}
\parindent=0pt

\begin{document}
\Huge

\outline{\cabin{\scalefont{1.5}{D i f f e r e n t \, F i l l c o l o r}}}
\end{document}

which produces

QUESTION: How may I modify this code (without TikZ in this case) in order to change the fillcolor to, say, blue? Also, must the outline color be black? If not, how may I specify that color, as well as its thickness?

Thank you.

Answer 1

Using the pdfrender package mentioned in the comments looks like a nicer option, but if you just want to make minimal modifications to your code, you can adjust the fill colour using PDF code.

The code that does this at present is: 0.8 g. The number runs from 0 to 1 and the g means Grayscale. To use colour, you can use the rg operator to specify an RGB colour. You need three numbers, one for each channel, e.g.,:

0.6 0.6 1 rg

gives you a light blue colour. It's also possible to use a CMYK colour, e.g.,

0.5 0 0 0 k

gives you 50% cyan.

The outline just uses the current colour that LaTeX puts on the colour stack, so you can just add \color{???} to set the outline colour.

There's probably a better way, but you can also insert PDF code to set the width of the outline:

2 w

sets the outline width to 2 bp (big points).

MWE

\documentclass[12pt]{book} 
\usepackage{xcolor}
\usepackage{cabin}
\usepackage{scalefnt}

\input pdf-trans
\font\f=qx-lmr10    at 60pt
\newbox\qbox

\def\outline#1{%
\setbox\qbox\hbox{\f #1}%
\boxgs{2 Tr 2 w 0.25 0 0 0 k}{}\copy\qbox
}%
\pagestyle{empty}
\parindent=0pt

\begin{document}
\Huge

{\color{cyan}%
\outline{\cabin{\scalefont{1.5}{D i f f e r e n t \, F i l l c o l o r}}}%
}
\end{document}

Answer 2

You have got the kind of solution you ask for, so let me add a context/metafun one, in case some users happen to pass by.

\setupbodyfont[dejavu,ss,60pt]
\definecharacterkerning[mine][factor=0.1]
\starttext
\startMPpage[offset=1dk]
draw lmt_outline [
  text = "\setcharacterkerning[mine]Different fillcolor",
  kind = "both",
  drawcolor = "blue",
  fillcolor = "yellow",
  rulethickness = 1.75,
] ;
\stopMPpage
\stoptext

A few comments: I did not have the cabin font installed, so I used dejavu. Also, I do not think that the extra letter spacing looks good, but if one wants it, this is a cleaner way than to add spaces between the letters. Other than that, I think it is pretty straight forward.