can anyone help with a question for Illlustrator 10 please?

[Kev Mayger]

can you post what your trying to achieve from a different process? Also what results your getting from what your doing??? May help if people can see what’s going on.

Kev

[Andy Gorman]

I’ve just tried to replicate what you are getting, but it keeps working OK. Any chance you can upload the file so we can have a look?

I can’t find anything that may make this happen, but I’m using ver 8 Illustrator.

[Frank Droog]

I will try to to post the eps file so you can have a look.
Not sure yet how to do that as i havent done it before.
(semi newbie/amature here)
Also should ask permision of the person i got the file from.

The frustration thing is, as i said, when i draw a thickline of 1 point in Adobe 10, it exports as 1 line with a width which is what i want.

But when i export this persons file out Adobe 10, the lines export as a 4 sided rectangle with a fill and no thickness. Its useless for cutting as no one wants to cut long thin rectangles. Both Corel and signlab import it as rectangles.
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If interested , someone designed a piece of clip art in Illustrator.
This clip art consists on many individual lines. There are few if any closed objects. All the lines have a width of 1 point. Nothing has any fill as nothing is closed. The person want to export this file as (ai or eps) to signlab or any other program to cut the job.
BUT, the lines dont export as lines.
They export as 4 sided filled rectangles. (actaully the corners are rounded) .
Whats curious is that in Wireframe in Adobe, the objects do appear as lines, but the export as rectangles. All 4 sides of the rectangle will cut.
Thats useless.

I am totaly stumped as to why my drawing exports as lines, but the clipart
file exports as rectangles.
Thought someone might know of some hidden settings in Adobe.

frank

[Ramj]

I’m not quite sure what you’re on about,

If a shape in illustrator has a stroke, then the exported file WILL have 2 lines, an inner and an outer, useless for cutting,

If you totally remove the stroke, by putting the colour as Nothing, and just have a fill, It’ll have the outer limits of the fill as one line, good for cutting.

just remove all the strokes. ???

[Liam Caulfield]

I think I know what you want. I use Freehand and when I make chunky lines that I would like to cut I use the Expand Stroke tool, this turns say a 4 point line with rounded ends into a cuttable shape rather than just a line.

I’ll have a look in Illustrator and see what I can find.

edit: ok I found it I took a screenshot but I cant attach images for some reason. Object>Path>Outline Stroke is what you need.

Or I might have mis-read it completely!

[Frank Droog]

thanks for the ideas ( both here and on another site)
Numerous people have come to the conclusion that it was a poorly designed peice of clipart by someone not familiar with how to draw for a vinyl cutter. It was hoped that there might be a (just press 1 button) solution but it is a lot of work instead.
Little if anything was closed objects or connected. It was just not drawn by a signmaker who knows what a cutter wants.

All that remains for me is a bit of intellectual curiosity.
1:
I draw and save a 1 point thick line in ILL10 as eps or ai.
That file imports into Corel and Signlab as a line with a 1 point thickness.
In Corel or Signlab, you make it a hairline and cut it.
2:
I import a piece of clipart into ILL10, that is just a few lines (pretend it is 1 line) and has a 1 point thickness. I save this as AI or EPS and import this file into Corel or Signlab and instead of a line, you get a rectangle with 4 sides and hairline attribute.

Thre is no differance between 1 and 2 except i drew one and imported the other. So why do they export as differant as night and day.

I am no longer interested in the particular file itself.
Im just baffeled by what the differance good be.
Knock on wood it is something that i never come across again.
I could be on Jeopardy one day and it might just be the final Jeopardy question.

frank

Orange dog. You posted 2 seconds befor i did.
I will try it. Hope it works.

[Frank Droog]

OrangeDog
I believe you qualify as the genius. (hot)
I tried what you said and it now imports correct. No more rectangles.

I am going to email Dave (another member here) who started all this.
He recieves these clip art files from a customer.
Hope hes as happy as i am.

Thanks a bunch
frank

PS Maybe i should ask Dave to upload the file in case people want to see the fun was all about . Hard to come up with an answer without a file to see.

[Liam Caulfield]

Glad I could help! 😀

[Andy Gorman]

He turns up once a year and solves everyone’s problems. Bugger.

Welcome back Liam, long time no see. 🙂