I have a pattern in Illustrator. I have transformed the pattern (scale, rotate, etc.) within an object.
The pattern is only transformed within that object. The parent pattern remains the same.
I want to
View the transformations I have made (e.g. 45° rotation, 95% scale)
Save transformed pattern as new pattern
Update parent pattern to match pattern within object
The ability to do any one of these would answer this question. The third would be similar to redefining a paragraph of character style based on current overrides in Illustrator or InDesign.
Unfortunately, there is no history panel in Illustrator, so that once you perform a transformation on a pattern, the transform panel resets to 0 and there is no way to determine what you have done. You might try to expand the object and see if you can create a new pattern out of the pattern that you have transformed, but my experience is that they are usually pretty messy.
If the problem is applying those transformations to other objects containing the same pattern, you could save it as a graphic style. Otherwise I don't think there is a simple solution.
Thank you for the quick reply! I'm working on a project involving 30 maps where I need to visually represent "political occupation" using a 45° striped pattern. The occupied countries must use two colors: the 45° stripes in the color of the occupying country and the background fill in the color of the occupied country.
To achieve this, I’m creating a unique graphic style for each of the 8 stripe colors (representing the 8 occupying countries). Once the graphic styles are set up, I apply them manually to the objects on the map and adjust the fill color in the Appearance panel to match the occupied country's color.
I understand there might not be an easier solution, but this seems to be effective so far. Whish me luck!
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