Swatches not working

Forum|Forum|2 years ago
January 14, 2024
2 replies
1162 views

Hi everyone. Is anybody having issues with swatches not working? Just started happening out of nowehere and I even went to previous projects to try them on there as well, and they won't even work there. Here's what's happening. I'm trying to apply a swatch to a shape and as usual, the swatch will go somewhere off screen which is normal. So then I just drag the shape over until the swatch is where I need to be. Well now it's just showing up in a small spot right in the corner but when I drag the shape to find the rest of the swatch, the swatch is attached to my shape. So nothing is changing. They are acting as one piece somehow. Have literally been messing with swatches for about a year now and this is the first time this is happening to me. See photos attached. Someone please help 😞 and thank you

How-to

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Ton Frederiks

Community Expert

It is still not clear what you are exactly doing.

Dragging pattern swatches from the Swatches panel is generally not a good habit, you run the risk of adding a single pattern tile to your artwork.

Instead, select your object, target the fill (or stroke) in the Tools panel and click the pattern in the swatches panel to apply it.

To position the pattern inside your object, you have options in the Transform panel menu to transform the pattern only. Holding down the tilde key while dragging or using the arrow keys will also let you temporarely move the pattern.

W

william29208828e26bAuthor

Participating Frequently

I do it just as you said. I create my shape. Say a square. Then go to the swatch menu and fill it with a particular pattern. Always works. You are looking through your shape/square like a window into the swatch right? And then you move your window/square to position the swatch inside your square the way you want it to right? That's what I'm trying to do. What's happening is the swatch is only showing up in the corner of my shape/square and when I move my shape/window, the swatch is not moving. It's still in the corner of my window as if it already attached itself to the window. So I have no way of postioning the swatch in the window to my liking.

Ton Frederiks

Community Expert

Can you share an Illustrator file that shows that problem?

Dropbox, WeTransfer, Google...

Monika Gause

Community Expert

Can you please show that swatch?

And that shape in the Layers panel?

ANd the appearance panel with the shape and the swatch applied?

Exactly where are you dragging it?

W

william29208828e26bAuthor

Participating Frequently

Thank you so much for the reply. I have a job I need to get done for a customer and I'm bugging out over here lol. Hopefully I took the correct screen shots for you. Normally I make my swatches an infinite pattern like you see with the larger black hexagons. But for some reason, it would act very strange when I tried to downsize it. So I basically traced it (in the red), made it smaller, and then copy and pasted it a few times until it was large enough to basically cover my whole project. I was successful before as you can see in one screenshot with the smaller black hexagons. That was yesterday. Today.... a different story. As far as where I'm dragging them. I just drag them wherever I need to in order to align the swatch the way I want inside of that shape you see. Cuz you know how the swatch doesn't move in the background? So I just move the shape around. Oh and in case it's not immediately clear, I'm trying to fill the inside offset shape as I've always done.

Monika Gause

Community Expert

This looks like you would be better off with a clipping mask instead of a swatch.

Next time please embed your images in your post.

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