How to perfectly tesselate lots of hexagons for laser-printing

[saVmc]

Hi! I am making a clock design using lots of hexagons (a honeycomb design) and I plan to laser cut the clock later on. However, when I pressed Ctrl+Y I saw that only a few hexagons had really snapped. It's really big and took me a while to make so I was wondering if there was a command/tool/feature to perfectly tesselate all those hexagons. I've found that going in and doing it all manually would just take way too much time. Any help would be greatly appreciated! I've attached my clock design. Also all the hexagons with black dots are going to be cut out and ones with brown dots are going to be scorched/slightly indented.

Thanks!

[Monika Gause]

Could you perhaps show something?

Also: how did you do it, exactly?

[saVmc]

I just copied and pasted lots of hexagons without properly aligning them, which wasn't very smart. Also here is an image

and using Ctrl+Y

As you can see, the lines haven't snapped. I am wondering if there is a way to snap them all without having to redo it.

I appreciate all help and understand if there is nothing I can do.

[Monika Gause · Accepted solution]

No, you cannot snap them all automatically.

Row by row could work though by using the Align panel.

When doing this kind of work: turn on Smart guides and snap to point

Turn on all the Smart guides preferences

Remember that Illustrator snaps at the cursor position

Press Cmd (Ctrl on Windows) when moving objects, so that cmart guides work

[saVmc]

Ok, thanks so much! I'll do that now.

[Ton Frederiks]

I agree with Monika.

You could have created a quick grid it with the Pattern maker with the Hex by Column Tile type and expand an object filled with the pattern.