Beginner doing something stupid; cannot fill or use stroke on an object

[kathyflag]

Hi,

I feel like an idiot. I created an object by using the pen to trace around something, and now I have an object. I had it working before, but then was messing with the size of it and the size of the artboard. Now I cannot make the object show up to print; I can neither use fill nor stroke. It shows up on the screen as light blue when not selected, and as dark blue when selected. If I do a print preview, it is blank. Apparently I have done something weird to this object...how do I go back to making it an outline that I can print?

thanks for any help

kathy

[macpawel]

Try to use CTRL+Y to switch to Outlines/Preview mode

[kathyflag]

Well...when I do that it does turn black rather than blue, and show corners, but it doesn't respond to making the stroke thicker, and still doesn't show up on the print preview. What does that mean?  And THANKS!

[michelew83603738]

It sounds like you may have made it into a guide - can you show us a snapshot of the layers panel with it open. It should say if it is a path or a guide. If it has been converted to a guide, you can right click and release the guide back to a path.

[meganchi]

I agree, it looks like you may have accidentally made your shape a guide.

Select your object, then Select "View" from your top menu bar, next, select "Guides", finally, select "Release guides".

[kathyflag]

Thanks again....doing a "Release Guides" doesn't seem to have done much. Here is a screenshot.

[Monika Gause · Accepted solution]

You are in Outline view mode.

View > Preview should solve it.

[kathyflag]

Yes, that worked! Please, another question. It seems to be stuck in "filled" mode (all black) rather than a stroke outline. The "swap between fill and stroke" doesn't seem to do anything. Maybe I shouldn't have been using that at all? How do I change a filled shape into an outline shape?

THANKS!!!!!

[Monika Gause]

At the moment your shape has both a fill and a stroke.

You can set the fill to "None".

Please read the documentation:

How to paint with fills and strokes in Illustrator

[kathyflag]

thank you so much....