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ETC+FF Staff
Participant
Feb 17, 2018 12:03 AM UTC
Question

View / Save / Redefine Pattern Transformations

I have a pattern in Illustrator. I have transformed the pattern (scale, rotate, etc.) within an object.

The pattern is only transformed within that object. The parent pattern remains the same.

I want to

  • View the transformations I have made (e.g. 45° rotation, 95% scale)
  • Save transformed pattern as new pattern
  • Update parent pattern to match pattern within object

The ability to do any one of these would answer this question. The third would be similar to redefining a paragraph of character style based on current overrides in Illustrator or InDesign.

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7 replies

Participant
Nov 28, 2024 9:50 AM UTC

Is there a new solution to this in 2024? 

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Doug A Roberts
Community Expert
Community Expert
Nov 28, 2024 9:59 AM UTC

If the problem is applying those transformations to other objects containing the same pattern, you could save it as a graphic style. Otherwise I don't think there is a simple solution.

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Participant
Nov 28, 2024 10:12 AM UTC

Thank you for the quick reply! I'm working on a project involving 30 maps where I need to visually represent "political occupation" using a 45° striped pattern. The occupied countries must use two colors: the 45° stripes in the color of the occupying country and the background fill in the color of the occupied country.

To achieve this, I’m creating a unique graphic style for each of the 8 stripe colors (representing the 8 occupying countries). Once the graphic styles are set up, I apply them manually to the objects on the map and adjust the fill color in the Appearance panel to match the occupied country's color.

I understand there might not be an easier solution, but this seems to be effective so far. Whish me luck! 

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michelew83603738
Community Expert
Community Expert
Feb 17, 2018 1:29 AM UTC

Unfortunately, there is no history panel in Illustrator, so that once you perform a transformation on a pattern, the transform panel resets to 0 and there is no way to determine what you have done. You might try to expand the object and see if you can create a new pattern out of the pattern that you have transformed, but my experience is that they are usually pretty messy.

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