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DrStrik9
DrStrik9
Inspiring
March 14, 2011
Question

Illustrator CS5 "dotted line" bug (???)

  • March 14, 2011
  • 2 replies
  • 21311 views

What's happened to Illustrator's "dotted line" function?  It sems to be broken ...   😞

Prior to CS5, I could always get a nice PREDICTABLE dotted line with "round" line-ends by specifying ".01 points" (as close to zero as possible) for the dash (which makes a circle [because of the rounded-end choice] at the dimension of the line-width), and a reasonable GAP length, such as the equivalent of the line WIDTH, or a little bit more.

But currently, this seems impossible. What I get is NOTHING like the original dotted line in all earlier versions of Illustrator. Talk about FRUSTRATING!  -  Is this is BUG?

... Or is there some kind of work-around?

Thanks for any help ...

-DS

P.S. Also, once you put a value in the second "dash" field, YOU CAN'T GET RID OF IT, which REALLY screws up your dotted line even more.   😞


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OS X 10.6.6, 64-bits
2.8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon

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    2 replies

    Scott Falkner
    Community Expert
    Scott FalknerCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    March 14, 2011

    Are you seeing something like this? The blue line shows the actual path. The top line uses the gap specified. The bottom line has Align Dashes to Corners set (button on far right next to the Dashed Line check box. This adjusts the gaps so that end points and corners always start or end at a dash.

    If you mean something else, show us. Attach a screen grab with the Strokes panel visible and the line selected, like I have done.

    W
    Wade_Zimmerman1
    Inspiring
    March 14, 2011

    As Scott points out it works as always has worked…and you should put a "0" as the dash length.

    RMarchand
    RMarchand
    Participating Frequently
    November 8, 2012

    Hi,

    I have the same problem with Illustrator CS5. It seem's that if you only enter "0 pt." for the first dash and let's say 18 pt. for the first gap in the "Dash and Gap Fields", Illustrator does not copy tthose values automatically to the other fields and does not make a dotted line as expected.

    Entering a second time "0 pt." in the next "Dash Field" will do the the job then. Sometime, you have to fill all the blanks fields wirh values in order to make dotted line to appear as expected.

    Hope this will help, it did for me.

    Sincerely,

    RMarchand

    _scott__
    _scott__
    Legend
    March 14, 2011

    Not sure I understand. Simply using 0 for dash and a gap size which is equal to the sttroke weight gives great dots with the round cap on.

    The .01 makes no sense to me. It's not needed.

    And I have no issue removing a gap - selecte, delete, enter key.

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