Participant

Question

Pathfinder Divide making art different colors

Forum|Forum|4 years ago
January 25, 2022
3 replies
357 views

Hi,

I am working in AI and make an allover print out of artwork over a 5x5cm square. When all artwork is in place, I usually make a new 5x5cm square on top, make fill/stroke nothing/invisible and highlight all artwork and click Divide. Usually it cuts the art, I delete all items outside the box and toss in swatches.

Sometimes this happens. I click Divide and it cuts everything but makes some or all the artwork a solid color, like white or grey. Then I have to click on every cut piece of art and recolor if I want to make it a perfect square pattern. When this happens, I just throw the invisible box in back of art, toss in swatches and call it a day but I like to make the artwork perfect as I send this to a factory to print and it is best to send the art with cropped edges so it is a perfect square.

See attached images for reference and let me know if you know why AI does this. Works on some art like expected and then another art blank color.

Thank you

Tools

This topic has been closed for replies.

Ton Frederiks

Community Expert

Reading your question again, I understand that you want to create a repeating pattern and save a single pattern tile. There is no need to remove the content outside the rectangle.

Creating patterns is easily done with the Pattern tool:

https://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/using/create-edit-patterns.html

To create a single pattern tile, just drag the pattern tile from the Swatches panel to the Artboard.

Copy it and paste it into a new document.

In the Layers panel, locate the last object at the bottom of the pattern tile group and select it.

Choose: Object > Artboards > Fit to Selected Art

You have created an artboard that has the same size as your pattern tile, you can print, place or export it at that size without deleting content outside the artboard.

You can hide that if you want by bringing the background rectangle to the front, select all and choose Object > Clipping Mask > Make.

Ton Frederiks

Community Expert

Could be compound paths, hard to say.

Does selecting the top rectangle only and choosing Object > Path > Divide Objects Below give the same result?

B

bigbrizzAuthor

Participant

If I only click on the top Square, the invisible lines I want to divide into the art, and not click on the art nothing happens when you click Divide. I would need to select the artwork with the square for it to work.

It is not the only time it happens. Here is another example. I made a pattern, click divide and magically some letters change to white. It does divide but I have to click on the lines and change to blue. This is a simple pattern so I could do this but with more detailed art and many colors, this can be a time spending hassle.

How do you know if it is compound paths and is there a way to remove it? The art I use is always created by an artist for the license or brand like Warner Bros for example. I see some art that is created bad and I will outline strokes, Divide and merge colors to make art simplified you may say. So maybe the artist do something to the art that makes Divide not work sometimes. That is the magic answer we are looking for. lol

Thanks for the reply

Monika Gause

Community Expert

How do you know if it is compound paths and is there a way to remove it?

By @bigbrizz

The layers panel tells you that.

Please embed images in your post. It's impossible to compare them when they are attached.

Monika Gause

Community Expert

You might want to check out the Live Paint function instead of this Divide workflow.

B

bigbrizzAuthor

Participant

I will look into this as an alternative solution. But the question is, why does divide work corerectly 60% of the time and 40% gives me mixed results changing colors and fills or not dividing? Thank you for your answer 🙂

Sign up

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Sign in to Adobe Community

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Scanning file for viruses.

This file cannot be downloaded