How to get a straight (vertical) end on a curved path

[danicoll]

Hi everyone,

This is one of those things that drives me crazy because it feels so simple, but I can’t figure out the solution.

I have a circular path that I want to turn into an arc (I’m referring to a section of the perimeter), but I like the ends of the path to be cut perfectly straight at 90°.

I’ve attached an image for reference:

• In Figure A, you can see what happens when I use the Scissors Tool to create the cutting points on my circle and then delete the segment. The path ends keep the natural tangent angle of the circle.

• In Figure B, you can see that one way to solve this is by expanding the stroke and intersecting it with a rectangle with straight sides. In this case, the ends are cut vertically, which is exactly what I’m looking for.

My challenge is to achieve the result from B while keeping it as a path, without needing to expand the stroke into a filled shape.

Any ideas on how to do this?

Thanks a lot for your help!

[Doug A Roberts]

There is no way to do this that isn't prohibitively more complex than just expanding the stroke.

[Ton Frederiks]

A clipping mask can do that.

Draw a rectangle on top, that covers a part of the circle, select both and choose Object > Clipping Mask > Make

[Ton Frederiks]