How to "paste inside" like in Freehand

[Julie_Howard]

In Freehand you cut paste inside (cut a larger object and paste it inside of a smaller object). How do you do this in Illustator?

Thanks!

[Monika Gause · Accepted solution]

Use a clipping mask.

Draw the mask above the obect you want to clip and then select all the stuff and press Cmd/Ctrl + 7

Mask may be a single or compound path or a text object.

[JETalmage]

So-called Paste Inside in FreeHand and Clipping Mask in Illustrator are really the same constructs: Clipping paths. Their interface is just different (with FreeHand's being far better.)

You don't say what version Illustrator you are using. Up until CS4, Illustrator's clipping paths stupidly displayed all the outlines of their contents when selected, and their dimensions (and therefore alignment, etc.) were based on those of the whole contents, not on the bounds of the clipping paths (extraordinarily cumbersome).

When you apply a clipping path in Illustrator, it removes the fills and strokes of the path used as the clipping path, whereas FreeHand leaves them alone. So in Illustrator, you have to tediously "direct select" (white pointer) the clipping path in order to re-apply desired fills / strokes.

Illustrator's sloppy interface allows you to go through all the motions apply multiple strokes and/or fills to a direct-selected clipping path--and then fails to display them unless you release the clipping path. (It does similar things in many other areas.)

When selected, Illustrator's interface stupidly calls a Clipping Mask a Group in the Appearance Palette (as it does with other constructs). The UnGroup command, however, is unavailable. Yet the constructs created by the Flare Tool is given its own object name, even though it comes a whole lot closer to being an ordinary Group than does a clipping path.

Hideous interface. Slopiness, inconsistency, inefficiency abounds. That's why it's so indecipherable to newcomers.

JET

[JBinReno]

I saw your "old" post while trying to find a way in CS5 Illustrator to accomplish the "paste inside" feature that I loved in Freehand. I see people responding about masks and clipping masks. I'm lost. It seems as if you haven't been an Illustrator user from the beginning, you're left in the dust. I sure miss Freehand. I'm finding that my Freehand MX will no longer work with the latest versions of Apple's operating system. So now I'm forced to try to learn Illustrator. It's really caused my creative genes to screech to a crawl! I cannot agree enough with your sentiments in your post. I really hope Adobe lets someone who is capable and cares to take the reigns of Freehand and resurrect the best drawing program ever!

[JETalmage]

It seems as if you haven't been an Illustrator user from the beginning, you're left in the dust.

Many who have been Illustrator users from the beginning have been left in the dust ever since--and just don't know it. 😉

I really hope Adobe lets someone who is capable and cares to take the reigns of Freehand and resurrect the best drawing program ever!

Gag me.

Mainstream 2D vector drawing was set back a decade when FreeHand's competitive development was discontinued. But I'm not interested in returning to 10 years ago, even though in many important ways doing so would still leapfrog Illustrator's current functionality.

In other words, I'm not interested in a ressurrection of FreeHand per se. FreeHand had its problems, too, albeit far less than Illustrator. For example: Tell me how to, in FreeHand, call for a straight single-segment path in terms of length and angle. Tell me how to specify a movement in terms of direction and distance. That's pretty basic stuff, wouldn't you say?

The fact is, mainstream 2D vector drawing is stagnant and has been for many years. There is no mainstream 2D vector drawing progam I would call no-nonsense, full-featured, industrial-strength. There should be--and should have been long before now--but there isn't. The whole category is cheezy grade-school crap. This is largely due to Illustrator's market dominance. But the blame for "market dominance" falls to the addicted-to-mediocrity market, not to the vendor. If users don't demand better, they won't get it.

As for the clipping path thing: The largest problem (display of masked portion) has at long last been corrected. It took decades for this to occur. The stupid and backward behavior of stripping the clipping path of its appearance still needs to be reversed. But there are many similarly inefficient, inelegant, cumbersome and tedious behaviors in AI. Given AI's development history, how many decades will it take to correct them all?

I don't have that much time. A new-from-the-ground-up, truly industrial-strength (truly "professional") 2D drawing program is sorely needed to re-invigorate this important graphics segment.

JET

[Ashley-Marie37819869sl3i]

Amen to that. I was expert in Freehand (and reluctantly Corel), but now I'm an absolute novice in Illustrastor. Thanks for nothing

Adobe.

[Ashley-Marie37819869sl3i]

That was actually an unfair and a dumb comment from me earlier. Since then I've been alocated an Illustrator licence and had some tutoring and once you get over that initial pain of "Ahhhg, everything is in a different place and it's all called different names" and actually start to find your way around it's pretty much as functioinal as the other vector drawing tools I've been expert in for years. So I take it back! 

[Wade_Zimmerman1]

JETalmage wrote:

…Up until CS4, Illustrator's clipping paths stupidly displayed all the outlines of their contents when selected, and their dimensions (and therefore alignment, etc.) were based on those of the whole contents, not on the bounds of the clipping paths (extraordinarily cumbersome).

JET

As the above user who made the above quote has found out that there are many Illustrator users who are very unhappy about this new behavior and want it rolled back. James has argued with one or two that they do not know what they are talking about and of course they do their own preference which is different from his own truth.

There is probably a compromise and doing thins the Freehand way is not necessarily going to get the long time Illustrator users to agree with the former FH users.

I would caution a little more thought go into these changes and features and give a lot more thought into what Illustrator users use Illustrator for as opposed to a few former FH users claims of superior know how.

Before they make a paste into feature like Freehand I would prefer them to look at ID and consider something more on that line then what was in FH.

[Guest]

"The fact is, mainstream 2D vector drawing is stagnant and has been for many years."

In my opinion, developers seem to be treating vector based programs as cartoon drawing programs.

So too are tutorial creators, instructors and other pundits.

There are so many of us though that are using programs such as AI for some very serious 2D work: technical illustration, map-making etc.

All the additional features added to AI over the recent years also seem to supprt those cartooning efforts, while the real needs of nitty-gritty illustration are left behind for some workaround or costly plugins and addins.

[Wade_Zimmerman1]

I think you have it wrong map making is not illustration nor is technical drawing. They maybe crafts, if you wish, that illustrator is suitable for but I am pretty certain that either of those examples Illustrator was never intended to be focused and that Illustrator is intended to be a tool to create Illustrations of all kind.

So plug ins might be the correct way to accomplish the things you want to which would also be the case other types of users for Illustrator.

[Joe_Paris]

dan o41 wrote:In my opinion, developers seem to be treating vector based programs as cartoon drawing programs.

So too are tutorial creators, instructors and other pundits.

There are so many of us though that are using programs such as AI for some very serious 2D work: technical illustration, map-making etc.

Hey!! My cartoons are serious too!

[askjacq]

so I don't see a real answer here. how do you take one graphic and "paste inside" another. Please don't give shortcuts since I use Windows. thanks

[Wade_Zimmerman1]

askjacq wrote:

so I don't see a real answer here. how do you take one graphic and "paste inside" another. Please don't give shortcuts since I use Windows. thanks

Not like Freehand but perhaps better…

[askjacq]

Can you send me instructions with the pictures? Thanks!

[minimum99]

I am wondering if anyone interested in a plugin I created to allow clip mask to work like painting paths with color swatches.

That is, you create a library consisting of images (jpg files) you brought into illustrator. Then, you select one or more paths and click an image swatch, the path will be clipped. I also solve all the problems one might encounter when selecting, editting clipped paths. Also, I created a set of, what I called AlphaFinder, similar to pathfinder, but it works with clipped paths as well as regular unclipped paths. My plugin has many other powerful features to edit clipping mask.  Attach image show the image library I mention above.

I hope to raise enough interests to start making it available, commercially.

I also created a plugin to do 2D animation inside of Adobe Ilustrator. You can view an example of this movie I created using that plugin here:

http://www.amazoncanvas.com/#birdbee.html

[Monika Gause]

Maybe you'd like to be a bit more precise - which version is the plugin for? What exactly do you need to start? How much will the plugin be?

[minimum99]

Version CS4 and up.

I don't understand what you mean "What exactly do you need to start?" question.

I don't know how much it will be yet

[Monika Gause]

To me it looked like you were thinking about a community founded project, so I was asking what you are planning to do. If that's not the case, please forget the question.

[minimum99]

I am an artist and a software engineer wanting to add features that I need to do my art.

So far, I have written a few but powerful plugins to do my work and thought if there are enough interests, I will make them available. For example, it is too combersome to select and edit a path using AI native selection tools so I created my own selection tools, ex: to select, add, cut, move, delete, join anchor with just one tool.

[Monika Gause]

This sounds very interesting. What I would do in your case is to recard a demo of how to use the plugins and create a new thread to attract more people and get more opinions on your plugins.

[minimum99]

I am putting together a demo right now. Will be ready in a few days.

Thanks,

Vincent

[Ummalik]

If you are using CS5 it has draw inside tool.  You can use the same tool for copy and paste inside (automatic clipping mask).

Hope that answers your questions.  (For CS5 users)

Enjoy

[second_timothy]

Anyone figure this out yet? Anyone have a plugin that might do this? Illustrator is WAY slower than Freehand for this task. When you are doing this all day it really makes a difference.

I created a video to compare the two. If anyone can help us make Illustrator be as fast .. wow ... we would love them forever more.

Check out the video here comparing Freehand 9.0 and Illustrator CC 2015/16

Freehand vs Illustrator - YouTube

[Monika Gause · Accepted solution]

Maybe you're looking for "Draw inside" Using drawing modes

[second_timothy]

That might work. Now do you know if I can select a mask by clicking the fill? Is there a preference to control that?