• Adobe Software

  Does anybody know how to draw this line in Illustrator?

  Posted by Simon Worrall on 29 May 2015 at 06:25

  Hello everybody.
  For Illustrator:
  I want to make a vector line down the middle of lots and lots of letters without cutting through them at all – as shown in the drawing. It is for weeding. I saw something similar in a trial copy of signlab or flexisign and thought it was a good idea.

  Thanks 🙂

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  Attachments:

  

  cbc-vinyl replied 9 years, 11 months ago 6 Members · 9 Replies
• 9 Replies

• 

  David Hammond

  Member

  29 May 2015 at 07:56

  Are you using Cutting Master?

  If so would the Auto Weld function not do this, if the text and line were the same colour??

• 

  Lionel Hermans

  Member

  29 May 2015 at 09:03

  Try with the "Pathfinder" tool in Illustrator. Unite option should made the trick.

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  Simon Worrall

  Member

  29 May 2015 at 09:09

  Nope David I have roland cut choice and a roland cx500 plotter.

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  Simon Worrall

  Member

  29 May 2015 at 09:13

  Unite doesnt do it Lionel.

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  Robert Walker

  Member

  29 May 2015 at 09:24

  Use the pathfinder tool,

  Select the outlined txt and the line,
  Click the Outline tool in pathfinder,
  re colour your outline,
  Ungroup
  manualy delete all the bits you dont want
  select all and unite or make compound path

  if theres a quicker way i would love to here it

  Robert

• 

  Chris Wool

  Member

  29 May 2015 at 22:13

  Sorry can’t see the point of it what’s the problem
  I can understand wanting to put a line between the text to aid weeding

  For what you ask in corel I would try to trim the letters from the line. Illyfrustrator have not a clue

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  Simon Worrall

  Member

  31 May 2015 at 12:07

  Chris this video demonstrates the point of my original post.

  That line down the middle makes weeding more than twice as fast, and the letters are much less likely to lift because you are weeding from the middle – outwards.
  I thought of this because I had five square meters of 20mm thin vinyl letters to do for an opening of our new art gallery in town for the following day, and found I couldn’t weed the letters of the silicone with removable vinyl and had to do it on the wall because it stuck better.
  With the weeding line down the middle, it would have been a piece of cake. and the extra effort worth it.

  If anyone is interested, I have found a fairly quick way to get the line down the middle of the letters in Illustrator.

  1. Select and COPY the line of letters.
  2. Draw a box with one edge cutting right through the middle of the letters.
  3. Select all… Pathfinder… Minus back.
  4. With the WHITE arrow, select all the points except those on the line you want to keep. You can do this in one movement.
  5. Delete those points. You are left with the line in the middle of the text.
  6. Paste in place, and draw a box around the letters and the line.
  Now they can be plotted, and the weeding line down the middle will not cut through the letters.

  Simon

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  cbc-vinyl

  Member

  25 November 2015 at 14:14

  I would have the text
  Copy it to clip board
  Highlight it
  Right click
  Create outlines
  Then draw line
  Expand the stroke
  Send line to back
  Highlight all
  Use the second icon on the pathfinder (subtract if I remember right)
  Then command and paste it.
  Highlight all and merge

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  cbc-vinyl

  Member

  25 November 2015 at 14:15

  Or you could try draw it out as shown in pic with line behind it
  Highlight all and expand stroke

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