Join Paths Not Working (It Keeps Selecting an Anchor Point in Middle of Line as Endpoint)

I hope you will report your findings, Turq.

Hi Hans-Jürgen,

Thank you very much for suffering the tutorial and setting things straight.

I was certain the tutorial/file/path was wrong.

I believe you can save countless innocent vistims if you can make the folk behind the helpx pages aware of the wrongness of the tutorial, so they can correct it (or at least move it to the how-not-to section). I have no clue how/whether it can be done.

Hi Jacob,

@Turq98BC is totally right. The file is wrong!

There are two identical arcs exactly one above the other - nested in several groups. Furthermore the start and and end point of the arc are not exactly horizontally aligned.

Not the best template for beginners! And IMHO I would use the Join Tool instead of the menu command: Join

Turq,

What happens if you go one step further back and create a first arc (making sure the end Anchor Points are level, you can use a horizontal line (in different ways)), then reflect a copy of it (horizontal axis), then ClickDrag the copy into place by ClickDragging one corner to snap (Smart Guides are your friends), then try to join (as suggested or just use Join with the two paths selected)?

And what happens if you do the same except rotate a copy of the first arc (180 degrees) instead of reflecting it?

As I said to start with, maybe the tutorial is simply wrong (maybe there is something wrong with the path).

Turq,

As I (mis)understand it (and maybe the tutorial is simply wrong, I am disinclined to watch tutorials), what happens in both attempts shown is that the left end Anchor Point of your top path is joined to the right end Anchor Point of your bottom path with the straight horizontal path segment in between.

In other words, you get an open path with what is basically an S hape with the ends more or less reaching (actually reaching, underreaching, and overreaching, it seems) the joins.

The reason for the spikes is that you have Miter Joins which stick out.

The right way is to have the left ends of the paths join and the right ends of the paths join.

There is a script (by 佐藤浩之, Satō Hiroyuki) called Join Reasonably.

In your case I am afraid you have invoked something opposite, which we might call Join UnReasonably.

What happens if you start over with the separate top and bottom paths, then with everything deselected ClickDrag across the coinciding end Achor Points, first at one end and then the other?

The ends of your paths do not meet exactly on the left side. I would sugest you redo the join and then fix the positioning of your paths and then try again.