HELP!! Can't make a compound path!!!

[duffer1969]

I'm an experienced FreeHand user and feel like a blind guy in a maze trying to use Illustrator!! I'm redrawing the Realtor Logo which is a simple square, and inside that are a rectangle, triangle and a semi-circle with a flat edge on the left. When combined, look like the letter R reversed out of a black box. When I select the all the elements and tell it to make a compound path, only the rectangle knocks out the background square and the semi circle and triangle just appear to be grouped with the square instead of knocked out!!! I've tried everything including moving the square to the front and the back, etc. How do you find out if the semi circle I drew is a closed path? I made the semi circle by drawing a circle and a square and then using pathfinder to edit them into a the left flat edged circle. The triangle I simply drew with the pen tool. I'm lost in this program!!

[Jacob Bugge · Accepted solution]

Duffer,

You may do it this way:

Select all three shapes in front and the square and Pathfinder>Minus front.

[Joseph168A]

JACOB!! THank you so much, one of my shapes wasn't working like it was supposed to I tried for hours, your advice just saved me! Thank you so much

[Jacob Bugge]

You are welcome, Joseph.

[Larry G. Schneider]

Make sure all of your pieces are unfilled and unstroked and in front on the colored square. Select them all and from the Object menu choose Compound Path>Make. Place it over any background and the "R" will be that color.

[duffer1969]

That didn't work? Any other suggestions?

[Larry G. Schneider]

In what way didn't the explanations give not work? Below is a version I did using my instructions.

[JETalmage]

You may have accomplished a Compound Path. Select it, look at the Appearance Palette (Illustrator's poor excuse for an object inspector) and see what kind of object it is.

Illustrator is not nearly as intelligent as FreeHand regarding path direction. You may very well have a Compound path, but some of the subpaths need their winding direction corrected. DirectSelect (white pointer) one of the subpaths that did not become a hole, and try toggling the Reverse Path icons in the Attributes palette.

JET

[Mike Henden]

The best way is to have a pre-Intel Mac set up just for running Freehand.

This is because Illustrator is a total piece of sh*t. I first encountered Illustrator at Version 2 (88) and was impressed when Adobe introduced Version 3 which featured the all-new pen tool for drawing Bezier curves. Unfortunately they haven't improved anything after this point.

I'm trying to make a compound path out of three paths (the letter B) and Illustrator is just too dumb to cope with more than three paths as a compound unit. Two paths is fine. Three, no way (and yes, all paths are closed). Which is why, in the end, it was back to Freehand to do in ten seconds what I had been attempting to do for 45 minutes.

The interface is buggy, the menus are obscure, drawing and moving elements on screen is an exercise in hit-and-miss. There is absolutely NOTHING about Illfrustrator that I like. Putting it in simplest terms, working in Illfrustrator like going back to 1992.

In the end the only way Adobe could force people to buy their crap software was to eliminate the competition. Which they did. Very successfully.

"Give me Freehand or give me death!"

[Cojcolds]

Thanks, JET... this was the perfect solution for me. Just reversed the knockout parts and magically they, ur... knocked out.

I also miss FreeHand!!!

Chz, Brett

[richards13467113]

Many years later - the same issue. What a crock of s*h*i*t and we're paying through the nose.

Thanks for your solution though JET.

[Shelley Stinson]

You're a genius!! Thank you for the Attributes Palette advice (14 years ago) .... it totally worked!!

[Monika Gause]

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@Shelley Stinson  schrieb:

You're a genius!! Thank you for the Attributes Palette advice (14 years ago) .... it totally worked!!

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You could have also found that in the documentation when searching for compound paths: https://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/using/combining-objects.html 

[dnkalp]

Try this,

Video : How to make a compound path (multiple clipping masks) in illustrator - YouTube

Hope its help

[Jacob Bugge]

Richard,

Have you tried the Pathfinder>Minus front way suggested in the first post, with no need to reverse the troublesome paths?

[richards13467113]

The issue was solved in the feed but my frustration remains with
Illustrator. What on earth are 'reverse paths'?

I would never have worked this out on my own.

--
Richard Scarborough

personal details removed by moderator

[Monika Gause]

Can you please describe your original issue? And post screenshots?

Because there might be a completely different solution to your problem, since this thread is very old and since you might not know all the options.