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Participant
Sep 30, 2026 7:32 AM UTC
Answered

Offset lines disappear when clipping another object/shape into said object

Hello! I’m still learning how to use Illustrator so apologies for any basic stuff I might miss. 

I’m trying to make an image similar to this (this was created with another software): 

As you can see, the rectangle with text is clipped into the bigger oval. Now, when I wanted to recreate the same clipping in Illustrator, the offset lines (inner straight and dotted lines) are now gone. I used the cut-draw inside-paste and get the result in right


I tried a workaround by creating a new shape over the existing one, but you can see there’s a hairline gap now… 

Is there any other way to make the intended result doable? The pathfinder methods to cut the rectangle also didn’t work.

    Ton Frederiks
    Ton FrederiksCorrect answer
    Community Expert
    Sep 30, 2026 8:28 AM UTC

    Did you try to make your clipping path larger? If you made it larger with an Offset effect , use Expand Appearance to expand the effect and make the real path larger.

    3 replies

    Ton Frederiks
    Community Expert
    Ton FrederiksCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
    Community Expert
    Sep 30, 2026 8:28 AM UTC

    Did you try to make your clipping path larger? If you made it larger with an Offset effect , use Expand Appearance to expand the effect and make the real path larger.

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    Participant
    Sep 30, 2026 9:02 AM UTC

    Whoa that works! Thank you very much! :)

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    Ton Frederiks
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    Sep 30, 2026 9:20 AM UTC

    Good to hear that helped.

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