Illustrator CC - Visible Artwork disappears when I "Flatten Transparency"

[Dogga Ross]

I'm new to Illustrator

and am doing test projects getting used to drawing vectors & applying gradients, etc.

I want to send some test artwork to a printer-cutter, so I need a spot-colour "CutContour" together with the artwork.

The only problem there is that I have to "Flatten Transparency" to get the "CutContour" spot-colour to play nice with all the other artwork.

I've just started to get the hang of all of that, when I am now presented with a unique problem I've never experienced before:

Artwork that is expected to be visible (top layer) disappears when flattening.

I've made a video of the kind of problem I'm experiencing, but I don't seem to be able to upload it here

So I've uploaded it to a weekly website for people to look at to hopefully figure-out what I'm doing wrong:

Illustrator noob - Blog

(www.illustratornoob.weebly.com)

Does anyone have any idea what's going on?

Many thanks in advance

[Monika Gause]

I don't understand why you want to flatten transparency.

[Dogga Ross]

I need to flatten the transparency because when I load a layered document into Roland VersaWorks with a spot-colour CutContour it fails to pick-up the CutContour.

The only way I've found to make sure VersaWorks picks-up the CutContour is to:

1. Put all the CutContours into their own layer on top of all the other layers

2. Select all the layers under the CutContour layer then "Flatten Transparency"

3. Save the file as a PDF

this is the only way I've found that works

[PrepressPro1]

You should not need to flatten a CutContour. Isolate it on its own layer,  Unite the shap and make sure it is one closed path. You can verify the cut object is one path by selecting this object and looking at the  Document Info Panel with the drop down menu for this panel set to Object. It will tell you how many points and if the object is one closed path. Make sure the CutContour object is colored with a spot named CutCountour or any other name to indicate this is the path denoting the final cut.

[Dogga Ross]

Thanks PrepressPro1,

the steps you suggest are what I do but for some unknown reason, unless I flatten the image first, the CutContour is not picked-up by VersaWorks.

Strangely enough, I had a play with a mate's older version of Illustrator (I think it was CS9 or something like that) and it didn't have this odd problem of graphics disappearing when flattening, it works as I expected.  So I find it odd that my up-to-date Illustrator CC has this problem.

So I'm still at a loss as to why this is happening

[Monika Gause]

Version 9 does not have a lot of the functions you might use in your current version. So that might be a different artwork altogether.

Nobody will be able to figure out what's happening without the actual AI file.

[Dogga Ross]

I'm a little confused by this forum

I would have thought that Adobe Developers would browse the issues raised and try to help out (as with other company-initiated user Forums)

but obviously I'm mistaken with Adobe

by the way, replying that you don't understand why someone wants to access a feature of an application is NOT being helpful; it's being precocious in my opinion

[Ton Frederiks]

This is a user forum, bug reports can be given here:

Adobe Illustrator Feedback

But maybe if you can share the file, the users of this forum may be able to find out what causes the problem.

[PrepressPro1]

I have had to experiment with the flattening settings to get the results I need in my workflow. I have found sometimes objects may appear to have dissipated but are only being covered by white objects which are now set to overprint. Don't ask me why this occurs, the files I flatten have non-native objects leading to this result. If I turn on overprint preview the file will display the hidden objects. Sometimes I can get the desired results by not flattening, but expanding appearance then using pathfinder dividing. You may want to do some testing to come up with flattening settings or appearance expanding that yield the desired results.   

[Srishti Bali]

Hi Dogga Ross,

I would like to know if the steps suggested above worked for you, or the issue still persists.

Kindly update the discussion if you need further assistance with it.

Thanks,

Srishti