Is trapping broken?

Question

I usually do all my trapping manually, but I recently found out that there's a trap option in the Pathfinder menu, as well as in the Effects menu. That said, when I use the Pathfinder tool, I just get this:

And if I use Effects / Pathfinder / Trap I can change some settings but the preview never changes.

As you can see here I set a trap thickness of 5 points, so it should be extremely visible.

I've read this guide: https://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/using/trapping.html#create_a_spread_or_choke many times. This document is CMYK and the two shapes are normal CMYK colors, but nothing I do seems to work, whether it's turning Overprints on or off, letting the objects overlap or trimming them flat, putting the objects on separate layers, etc.

Here's my file if anyone thinks it will help: Dropbox - trapping help.ai

What am I doing wrong?

ritiwari · Answer

Hello Nathan Regnier-LangeI checked your file. Above two objects are group so both Pathfinder Panel Trap and and Pathfinder Effect Trap can be applied on it.Below objects can only be trapped by Trap from Pathfinder Panel as pathfinder effect cannot be applied on non-group objects.Also bottom left object cannot be trapped as Overprint fill is on in Attributes Panel for the Ellipse. So in order to trap it uncheck Overprint fill in Attributes panel for the ellipse. Also delete the Trap Effect from Appearance Panel for the bottom objects in order to apply trapping from Pathfinder Panel as i told they are non-group objects.Hope this solves your problem.Regards,Rishabh TiwariIllustrator Team

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