Illustrator Pattern problem when creating swatches

[melissab82018159]

So I've used the swatch and pattern functions well in the last few weeks. But now this is happening. When I create a pattern from my vector and save it as a swatch, everything appears the way it is supposed to. But after the swatch is created and saved, when I drag the swatch and apply it on my page, the pattern is missing some elements (eyes, nose etc.), The actual pattern created displays the items correctly with no missing parts. This only happens when I drag and apply the pattern swatch to the page. Help!!

[Kurt Gold]

It does look pretty funny.

Can you share the actual Illustrator file (.ai)?

[melissab82018159]

This platform won't let me upload .ai files

[Ton Frederiks]

Did you create the pattern with the Pattern Maker?

When you drag the pattern from the Swatches panel, is there an invisible rectangle at the back of the pattern? You can see that in the layers panel at the bottom of the group.

Everything inside this rectangle defines the pattern, everything around it is generated by the Pattern maker and shows only parts.

[melissab82018159]

Hi, yes thanks. There is a rectangle around the vector that defines the pattern. Attached screen shots.

[Kurt Gold]

You could use one of the common file sharing providers, for example Google Drive or your Creative cloud storage.

[Ton Frederiks]

Looks like a normal way the pattern maker defines a pattern.

Do you want to export a single pattern tile?

[melissab82018159 · Accepted solution]

So I just figured out what happened 🙂 When I create an empty square on my page and then click the created swatch from my swatches to populate the square, it works fine. What I was inadvertantly doing was dragging the created pattern swatch from the swatch panel and plopping it down onto the page. The result of dragging and dropping the pattern swatch onto the page (as opposed to placing the swatch inside a defined square) was resulting in missing elements from the pattern. Thanks for the help!!

[Ton Frederiks]

Good to hear found the cause of your problem.