<https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/64651-how-to-have-a-transparent-stroke/#comment-336594>
<http://schema.org/text>
"Yes I tried it out and the effect becomes a raster, so no good for export really unless you are going to raster format, but still a great function to know about for speed/quick proofing etc. \n\t \n \n\n\n\t \n \n\n\n\n\n\tI'm confused - what do you mean by 'I can't have my blank space'? Maybe you're missing out the 'expand stroke' bit?  That is necessary to convert the stroke to it's own shape. It's that shape that you duplicate and subtract from the shapes surrounding your original object. You do also need to subtract from your orginal shape because a stroke normally sits over part of the fill, so if you remove the stroke the object gets larger by half of the stroke width (or smaller that what originally was with the stroke by half the stroke width!). You don't need to make anything transparent with this method - you are simply cutting shapes away from other shapes. \n \n"
<https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/64651-how-to-have-a-transparent-stroke/#comment-335894>