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Is the stroke not aligned properly, or is Unite not working properly?

Forum|Forum|3 years ago
February 24, 2023
4 replies
1863 views

Open a new Illustrator document. Create an elipse that's 10" W x 10" H. Apply a 30 pt stroke to it, and align that stroke to the outside of the shape. Select Object > Path > Outline Stroke. Click the Pathfinder panel, and select Unite.

If you're experiencing the same issue that I am, then you'll find that there are stray points and paths inside of the newly-united object where either 1) the stroke wasn't aligned precisely to the outside of the shape, or 2) the Unite function didn't work properly.

Which is it? Is there a simple fix to eliminate these stray points and paths? It's easy enough on my circle example, but when dealing with something like text, it's very time consuming to go into each object and delete the stray points.

Bug

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Correct answer Jacob Bugge

Liam,

"Is there a simple fix to eliminate these stray points and paths?"

An answer to this is: simply apply Unite again.

Jacob Bugge

Correct answer

Community Expert

Liam,

"Is there a simple fix to eliminate these stray points and paths?"

An answer to this is: simply apply Unite again.

Jacob Bugge

Community Expert

Liam,

How about your just using a centre aligned stroke at twice the Stroke Weight?

L

Liam1996Author

Participant

Thanks, I'll give that a try next time! My question is mainly to do with why this is an issue in the first place. You can try it with the same circle multiple times, and each time it produces a different result. It makes me think that the leftover points are areas where the stroke is not touching the original object, which doesn't make sense if the stroke is supposed to be aligned to the outside of the object. You'd expect the result to be one solid object.

Jacob Bugge

Community Expert

Liam,

For fun you can try this on your ellipse with outlined stroke: before uniting, select the outlined stroke and rotate it by 22.5 degrees, then select both and unite.

Monika Gause

Community Expert

This typically happesn when there are paths stacked on each other.

I would typically avoid that in the first place.

If you want to enlarge a shape, check out offset path as an effect or in Object > Path

You could try Object > Path > Simplify to fix it.

In this case you might also just try and delete that path (it should be united, right?

You could also before using the pathfinder functions try and adjust the options for precision.

L

Liam1996Author

Participant

Thanks for your reply, Monika! I use Offset Path a lot, but in my specific use case I think there was a reason I needed to enlarge the shape using a stroke instead of offset path. I'll give that a try next time though.

Simplify doesn't work reliably and it also changes the original shape slightly.

Monika Gause

Community Expert

If you are worrying about the duplicate shape that Offset path creates, then use the effect. WHen you want it permanently applied: Expand appearance.

As for simplify: the plugin VectorScribe has a tool with a better algorithm.

L

Liam1996Author

Participant

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