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How to do a wholesale swap of all instances of one shape to another shape?

Forum|Forum|6 years ago
February 14, 2020
2 replies
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I have a design that uses a large amount of a single shape. I've been refining it and now I want to do a wholesale swap one of shape to another shape. I know I can do this one at a time using symbols, but I'm wondering if there is a way to have Illustrator search for all instances of a particualr shape geometry and replace them with the new shape. Maybe a script like this exists?

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Correct answer Kurt Gold

Yes, there are scripts (do a search fo zamena or zamena size, for example).

And there are other ways as well. Which one depends on the Illustrator version you are using. What version is it?

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You may try the built-in Global Edit feature.

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Zamena will do exactly what I want. And I had no idea that global editing existed. I learn two new things today. Thank you so much!

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Correct answer

Community Expert

Yes, there are scripts (do a search fo zamena or zamena size, for example).

And there are other ways as well. Which one depends on the Illustrator version you are using. What version is it?

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Author

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Zamena script works great!

Do you also know of a way to replace just the geometry of an object with the geometry of another object? (Leaving the fille and stroke alone)?

Disposition_Dev

Legend

You can create a graphic style with the source object, run the zamena script to change the object, then apply the graphic style to the new object.

If you were so inclined, you could write a script that does all of this for you, including making a function call to the zamena script.