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How do I unmerge connected paths in Illustrator CS5?

Community Beginner ,
May 12, 2013 May 12, 2013

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I was wondering if there was a way to 'unmerge' a group of connected paths. The thing is whenever I click on one of the ovals, it selects a whole group of ovals instead of just the one I selected. The problem is that I drew an oval, copied it multiple times until I made a pile out of it, then copied that pile and made other piles. So whenever I click on one of the ovals, it selects the entire pile. Is there a way I can 'unmerge' or ungroup all the paths so I can  select just one of the ovals? I'm not doing this so I can copy them again, I'm trying to delete them individually but I really can't.

Screen Shot 2013-05-12 at 8.48.32 PM.png

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Community Expert ,
May 12, 2013 May 12, 2013

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Go into the layer panel, find out what kind of object they are and then act accordingly. For instance: if it's a group, ungroup it.

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Community Beginner ,
May 12, 2013 May 12, 2013

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Well I've already tried 'ungrouping' it that way and it doesn't work. And I'm not sure what you mean by what kind of object it is. How do I find that out? I'm still new to Illustrator so I'm not used to everything on there. 

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Community Expert ,
May 13, 2013 May 13, 2013

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sinsenest,

Yoy may deselect and then use the Direct Selection Tool (white arrow) to delete each.

If you can just click the fill of a path you can press Delete once and it is gone. If you have to click the stroke (the actual path) you will have to press Delete twice.

There seems to be something strange, where parts of stroke sare missing. In some places it looks like a stroke applied to a group of paths, in other places it seems even weirder. Is that part of your present editing?

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Community Beginner ,
May 13, 2013 May 13, 2013

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Right, and that's  another problem I'm having. The reason why some strokes are missing is because I used the White Arrow to delete some ovals. But I'm guessing I selected just the stroke of the oval instead of the actual fill path, so it only deleted the strokes and left the fill path alone. Also, the reason why only partial strokes are deleted is because using the White Arrow only allows me to delete anchor points instead of a complete stroke.

Stroke Selected.png

Stroke Result.png

So basically that's what it looks like. I selected a stroke using the White Arrow, but it only deleted a partial of the complete stroke. I even tried something else - selecting a stroke with the White Arrow then switching to the Black Arrow to delete it. But still, the results were the same. There's probably another odd thing you could catch from this screenshot that I just noticed as well after zooming in - for some reason, some small sections of the strokes  looks like they're 'cracked' or have been cutted up somehow. I'm not sure how that happened, but it seems like that problem exists in the 'fill sections' also.

Fill Selected.png

Fill Result.png

I'm not sure if you can see it, but to the right of the highlighted selection I clicked on, there exists some grey 'cracked lines' that almost looks like they've been cutted up with a knife or something. It's just like the same problem with the strokes. I'm not sure how it became like that at all. This problem only seems to exist in the [blue highlighted] group of ovals of the first screenshot I posted in this thread. All the other ovals to the right can all be individually selected, and deleted with just one click. The groups of ovals to the left for some reason are different - I have to delete them through cutted up sections of strokes and fill paths, which can practically take forever. This problem seems way too complicated for me to get.

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Community Expert ,
May 13, 2013 May 13, 2013

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sinsenest,

When you click with the Direct Selection Tool, you can click the fill and delete the whole path (even if it is in a Group).

Clicking on an Anchor Point, you can delete both adjacent segment, and the path will be open.

Clicking the path between Anchor Points, you can delete that segment, and the path will also be open.

What you have seems to be rather messy and entangled and a mixture of closed and open paths and then some gaps.

I believe it would be easier and faster to recreate the Old Coins heap than to unentangle and unmess it.

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Community Beginner ,
May 13, 2013 May 13, 2013

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And yeah, I just sort of gave up on that problem. I might as well just delete it and change the pile of coins to  a single large coin instead. It'd make everything a lot easier I think. Thanks for your help though.

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Community Expert ,
May 13, 2013 May 13, 2013

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For my part you are welcome, sinsenest.

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Community Expert ,
May 13, 2013 May 13, 2013

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I meant it like I said: open the layer panel and just read what the selected object is called there. Is it a group or a live paint object or something else? If you don't know, then please show us a screenshot of the open layer panel with an object selected.

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Community Beginner ,
May 13, 2013 May 13, 2013

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When you say "read what the selected object is called there," you mean what I named the layer? And I'm sorry, I'm not exactly sure what is meant by a 'group' object. It doesn't tell you what it's called besides the layer's name. All I know is that I made an oval, applied a stroke, then used the Live Paint Bucket to fill in a color; so I'm not sure if all that makes the selected layer a "live paint object" or something else. This is what my layers panel looks like with the selected object though:

Screen Shot 2013-05-13 at 4.07.53 PM.png

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LEGEND ,
May 13, 2013 May 13, 2013

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Have you tried selecting all those ovals and choose Object > Expand, then Pathfinder > Merge?

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Community Beginner ,
May 13, 2013 May 13, 2013

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Well I just tried your method and I still got the same problem.

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LEGEND ,
May 13, 2013 May 13, 2013

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Can you post a test file somewhere?

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Community Beginner ,
May 13, 2013 May 13, 2013

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I'm sorry I'm not sure what you mean by a "test file" and how to even make one. I'm still sort of new to Illustrator.

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LEGEND ,
May 13, 2013 May 13, 2013

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Go back to the original fileand save the file as a copy, then delete everything but the ovals .. then upload it somewhere (Cloud, dropbox, etc) and provide a link to the upload.

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Community Beginner ,
May 13, 2013 May 13, 2013

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Well I uploaded it to Dropbox.com. This is the link to the image:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ce2wc8p12d9cbd0/Scenery%20Copy.ai

It'd be great if this problem could be helped, though I don't think it's very solvable. It's fine if you can't really do anything about it, I'll just delete everything and redo that part over. But thanks for your help though.

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LEGEND ,
May 13, 2013 May 13, 2013

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Is this the original file before you did anything?

Bad news is many of those ovals have been expanded and merged and there is no way to undo that. You would be better served by selecting the expanded ovals....

Snap_002.png

And deleting them.

Then you cna delete the black lines associated with those groups....

Snap_003.png

Then simply use the still solid ovals in the center to recreate those three spots.

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Community Beginner ,
May 13, 2013 May 13, 2013

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Well thanks for managing to help out. It is a really annoying problem, and I guess it can't be fixed. I'm just going to redo that whole section over again and draw something else. Sorry you had to go through all that though.

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LEGEND ,
May 13, 2013 May 13, 2013

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Sorry I couldn't help further.

Just to be clear, the art got to this way becuase of something you did during it's creation. There isn't any instance where the expanding and dividing would occur naturally. At least, not that I'm aware of.

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Community Beginner ,
May 13, 2013 May 13, 2013

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Well after you mentioned it, I should've said it earlier but one thing I kept on doing was using the white arrow to select different portions of the whole picture and then doing either Object > Live Paint > Make or Object > Live Paint > Merge. I thought they both were the same thing so I used "Make" more than I did "Merge". I used it so I could paint on the picture (which it wouldn't let me do before I applied the Make/Merge effect) and had no idea it would do anything  or effect the piles of ovals. For some reason with this drawing, and another one I did, it wouldn't let me apply the Make/Merge effect if I selected the whole entire picture. So I had to individually select separate sections of the entire image and paint on it that way. I'm not sure if this had any effect on parts of the image, but I honestly have no idea what else it is I did that screwed up the picture.

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Community Expert ,
May 13, 2013 May 13, 2013

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Community Beginner ,
May 13, 2013 May 13, 2013

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LATEST

I'll check those articles out. They look like they could be really useful, especially for my situation. Thanks for your help as well.

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Community Beginner ,
May 13, 2013 May 13, 2013

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Oh sorry I didn't catch that second screenshot until now. But how did you remove the black outlines from all colored ovals? And did you remove the text by using the White Arrow and selecting all the anchor points? I tried doing what you just did myself, but I still have no idea how.

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