How can I split these paths without outlining them?

George,

As you have discovered, Illustrator does not provide any decent means by which to cut multiple open unfilled paths without their becoming outlined. The only tool that can do it is the inaccuate Eraser tool. But it can't be told to follow a path; it is limited to either cutting a straight swath, or to the "path" you draw in inaccurate "free hand" mode. In both cases, it always cuts a swath (is incapable of cutting a zero-width swath). In both cases, it can unpredictably alter the shapes of the remaining portions.

The tedious LivePaint toy doesn't help in many-instance situations like this. Other oft-cited workarounds such as applying and then expanding clipping paths or opacity masks results in outlined strokes.

The only command in Illustrator that can correctly cut multiple open unfilled paths is the poorly-named Outline Pathfinder. But it has these poorly-designed behaviors:

* It leaves all the unwanted deadwood in place.

* It cuts the "cutting path" as well, and leaves its resulting segments in place.

* It removes all pre-existing strokes and fills. So that preempts potential workarounds such as using a different color or stroke weight for the cutting paths to facilitating selection and deletion after-the-fact. Nor do object names or notes pre-applied to the cutting path survive the Pathfinder operation.

The obvious need for a decent, straightforward path-cutting capability is one of several areas in which Illustrator feigns "sophistication" with a dizzying array of illogically-designed tools and commands--yet still fails to provide the most basic needed functionality. I've been complaining about this one (and others) for years.

Compare to Corel Draw, with which you can employ any path as a cutting path. When used, the pre-existing strokes/fills are maintained, strokes do not become outlined, and you have the option as to whether the cutting path remains.

Given that AI's scripting model does not provide calls for all the commands in the UI (not that it necessarily should--that's supposed to be what Actions is for), and given that it does not provide such prebuilt functions as determining path intersections, you would be left to "do the math" for the path shapes, were you to try to script such a feature. That would be an impractically ambititious task, compared to the relatively modest cost of a competitive side-grade to a program that already provides the needed functionality built-in.

Back to the horrible Outline Pathfinder: If you first fill the cutter path, the result of the Outline Pathfinder illogically applies the fill color to the portions of the cut paths that intersected the area of the cutter path. The stroke weight becomes set to zero (not even supposed to be allowed in Illustrator), but is visible and selectable by color. The outboard deadwood has its stroke attributes removed. So in some situations, pre-filling the cutter path could be a workaround for selecting and deleting the unwanted outboard deadwood. Unfortunately, the resulting segments of the cutter path itself also receives the same stroke color and weight as the "keeper" content, so you are still left with the problem of no way to differentiate the cutter path remnants for selection and deletion.

JET

Is this possible?