Illustrator Eraser Tool Filling in my Shape

Forum|Forum|7 years ago
June 22, 2018
3 replies
1328 views

I'm trying to erase some rough parts of a sketch I scanned in and auto-traced in Illustrator, but whenever I go to erase them, it inverts the whole shape as if I deleted the fill, but I didn't. There are no strokes, it's just a vector traced object with points. After I erase the parts, I have to go into Pathfinder and hit the 'Exclude' option... Any suggestions why it's doing this?

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Myra Ferguson

Community Expert

I'm not clear on what part you were considering rough, but if you want to clean up the overall trace, you could use Object > Path > Simplify. You can also use the Direct Selection Tool to select certain points and use Simplify just on them.

Mike_Gondek10189183

Community Expert

Could you possibly be using the path eraser tool (within the shaper tool) , instead of the eraser tool (SHIFT E).

Appears you are using the correct eraser tool and a compound path is being broken. I suspect this is coming from the image trace.

As a test can you try on an outlined font and let us know if the problem happens there. Would be good to see you image trace settings, even though in my tests ignore white and overlapping method did not make a difference.

You can also try resetting your prefs if a tool in not functioning normally.

Monika Gause

Community Expert

Not sure what exactly you are trying to erace there. Please sho before and after.

Also it won't hurt to read the documentation about the eraser tool (or some of the introductory pages altogether)

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