Outlined characters

The contour package can do this, too. You'll need to use Type 1 fonts (check the documentation); here is sample code

\documentclass[12pt,a4paper]{article}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{pslatex}
\usepackage{contour}
\usepackage{color}
\pagestyle{empty}
\begin{document}
\contourlength{2pt} %how thick each copy is
\contournumber{20}  %number of copies
\contour{red}{\Huge \textcolor{green}{This is the text.}}\\
\end{document}

The output is: Changing the contourlength to 1pt will give a less pronounced outline.

The pst-text package can do this.

\documentclass{minimal}
\usepackage{pst-text}
\DeclareFixedFont{\RM}{T1}{ptm}{b}{n}{2cm}

\begin{document}
  \pscharpath[fillstyle=solid,fillcolor=magenta!50]{\RM TeXnik}
\end{document}

Perhaps you can migrate this to plain (Xe)TeX.

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Package pdfrender for pdfTeX or LuaTeX (newer versions require package luatex85) allows to configure the outline with many parameters as fill color, stroke color, or line width for stroking.

Because of pdfTeX's colorstacks, page breaks are supported as for color settings.

Example:

\documentclass[12pt]{article}
% \usepackage{luatex85} % for LuaTeX
\usepackage{xcolor}
\usepackage{pdfrender}
\definecolor{CharFillColor}{rgb}{1,.8,.8}
\begin{document}
  \sffamily
  \textpdfrender{
    TextRenderingMode=FillStroke,
    LineWidth=.2pt,
    FillColor=CharFillColor,
  }{Lorem ipsum.}
\end{document}