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Releasing All Clipping Masks?

bryanoooo
Community Beginner ,
Apr 29, 2015 Apr 29, 2015

Hi Everyone....Please Help Me!

I am regularly required to work with old pdf files for my company, which I have to open in Illustrator to amend and update (we don't have access to the original .ai files).

Whenever I start to work on these files I have to spend ages just unconnecting the elements of the artwork, usually by right clicking and choosing "release clipping mask"

Is there a way to just disconnect everything when you open up an old pdf document in Illustrator?

Tá mo chroi bhríste

(it has my heart broken - in Irish!)

Kind Regards to all

Bryan

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correct answers 2 Correct answers

Theresa J Community Expert
Community Expert , May 16, 2015 May 16, 2015

First, set your fill and stroke both to none. Make sure all of the layers, and the art is unlocked. Then go to Select>Same>Fill & Stroke. Clipping masks usually don't have a fill and stroke, so this should select all of them. Then you can just hit the delete key to remove and release everything.

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nickgripton
Participant , Nov 08, 2018 Nov 08, 2018

Select everything CTL+A

then CTL+ALT+7 which will release all clipping masks

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elizabeths61297746
Participant ,
May 10, 2024 May 10, 2024
In Response To Eliyah Gevalt

This!! This worked for me. Thank you, the Select>Object>Clipping masks, and then I went to Object>Clipping Mask> Release. Worked much better. Nick's shortcut didn't work for me.

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aliii33990479d0b8
New Here ,
Feb 14, 2025 Feb 14, 2025
In Response To Eliyah Gevalt

Thank you sm

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