How do I cut a quick, accurate gap / hole in a path?

Erin,

If you need the gaps to be exactly 0.6 mm, it is a bit (more) tedious, but if you can use gaps in the stroked path that may be a wee bit larger made from something that is only roughly perpendicular to the path at the desired cuts, you can, Smart Guides being your friends:

1) Create a rectangle that is 0.6 x 10 mm and give it a contrasting fill colour and no stroke, then Ctrl/Cmd+X+B,

2) Move 1) to cross your path at the first desired cut and rotate it to your liking,

3) With the Scissors Tool cut at the intersections and delete the gap path,

4) Repeat 2) - 3) at the subsequent desired cuts,

5) Delete the contrasting path or simply move it out of the way.

I found this a brilliant video by YemZ, it expands the appearance of the dashed lines, but keeps the lines as lines.

You may create a dashed line style with a 60mm dash and a 0,6mm gap and use the technique in the video to create lines separated by gaps.

Video:

Expand Dashed Line - YouTube

At the end of this discussion:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/illustrator/transform-dashed-lines-into-separate-small-lines/m-p/2876128

After a lot of playing around it seems this is the best solution to my question: create two guidelines that are 0.6 mm apart. Group them. Put them where I want to cut out a gap. Use the scissor tool on the points where the guidelines intersect with the line I want to cut. Then delete the path that the scissor tool cut out. I wish there was a faster way to do the for many different objects, but I'm thinking that there isn't a better way... 

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out. In addition to the great responses given earlier, I'd also recommend checking out the help article https://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/how-to/join-trim-paths-lines.html for more information.

Hope it helps.

Regards,

Ashutosh

if you jus tneed the odd 'hole' here and there to crate the ;joins' from part to sheet, i'd just draw a line with any tool, with a .6mm stroke and cross your cut path wherever you want a 'hole'. when youre ready to send the file, just convert strokes to outlines using the 'expand appearance' and expand... Path..  and then use the 'pathfinder' pallette options,  you can use your .6mm lines to 'Minus Front' and take those sections away from any underlying lines.

You can set the Preferences > Units > Stroke to mm and set the dash - gap to 0,6 for the stroke.

Use the "Preserve exact dash and gap lengths" option and turn off Scale Strokes and Effects in the Transform Panel.