Skip to main content
J
J6Studios
Participant
October 13, 2022
Question

Symbol within a symbol

  • October 13, 2022
  • 3 replies
  • 705 views
Who knows a lot about using symbols in Illustrator? I have a symbol I made that has an embedded symbol inside of it. I want to change the embedded symbols color of an instance (Not the original symbol color) but Illustrator won't let me. It only lets me change the main symbols color.
 
I don't want to break the link to the symbol to do this though.
This topic has been closed for replies.

3 replies

Mario Arizmendi
Mario Arizmendi
Legend
October 13, 2022

Symbol nested into a symbol is not a good practice as Mike suggested.

Anyway, if you want to change an individual instance of a symbol, make sure that when you create the symbol for the first time chose Dynamic Symbol instead of Static symbol, this way, using the white arrow tool you can select and change something on an instance of the symbol, but limited.

 

 

    J
    J6StudiosAuthor
    Participant
    October 13, 2022

    Thanks. I have a main icon and it's used in different logo versions. If I ever edit it, I wanted it to change in all versions of the logo. 

    Mike_Gondek10189183
    Community Expert
    Mike_Gondek10189183Community Expert
    Community Expert
    October 13, 2022

    Never nest symbols. There used to be a serious issues of crashing, not printing or making PDFs. While this version of Illustrator might be working, you are setting yourself up for disaster.

     

    Why are you nesting them? Unless you have a huge project with 100s of symbol varaiotns with a common element, abandon this nesting.

    Met1
    Met1
    Legend
    October 13, 2022

    I know nothing about symbols, but it seems to me that you'd have to have created the "embedded" symbol previously, so why not edit that? It's my limited understanding that changing a symbol will change all occurences of where it is used... no?

    Met1
    Met1
    Legend
    October 13, 2022

    Yes. I just tried it. I created symbol A, then made symbol B with symbol A in it... I changed symbol A and symbol B changed... Very simple color squares, so maybe if you have something complex your solution might be more complex...

    J
    J6StudiosAuthor
    Participant
    October 13, 2022

    I only want to change the instance of a symbol with an embedded symbol inside it. I have an icon embedded in another Symbol. I can edit the instance color (Not the original symbol color) since I only need 1 color variation. It's not letting me edit the embedded icon symbol though.

    Terms & ConditionsAccessibility statement
    Using the community Terms of use Privacy Cookie preferences Do not sell or share my personal information ad choicesAdChoices