Drawing a border line in Illustrator CS4

[Mathew Gibson]

Draw a rectangle, Then 4 Circles place onto corners and hit minus in the pathfinder
tool

[TomPreston]

quote Mathew Gibson:

Draw a rectangle, Then 4 Circles place onto corners and hit minus in the pathfinder
tool

Thanks for the reply, but that’s the way I already do it.

I’m looking for a quicker solution if that is possible?

[Tobias Redig]

Make a brush stroke that has those corners. Draw a rectangle, apply the stroke.

Just remember to expand the path if you want to be able to cut it.

[Jan Storgaard]

quote TomPreston:

Hi.
This may seem like a ridiculous question, but I’m looking for a quick and easy way of drawing the attached shape in illustrator.

I am currently using Graphix Advantage Composer 6.2 to do my designing, which features a tool which allows me to simply draw out the shape and set the corner radius’ I need.

However I am struggling to find a way of making this shape quickly in illustrator, (the way I do it at the moment is draw a box at the back and 4 circles in front, then ‘minus front’ in pathfinder).

This is very time consuming compared to the way and accuracy I can do it with Composer.

Is there a plugin which allows me to simply draw this shape?

Also, does anyone know the correct name for this shape?! It may help me in searching for a solution.

Mathew posted the solution. I would make 5-10 different rectangles with different inverted corners AND make a symbol library for easy access.
I DONT think the brush solution is helpfull, its a pain to make many different sizes and it not a path unless you expand and combine after (takes to long)

Seach criteria: Border corner inverted negative frames ornament vector

Jan

[OwenTaylor]

How quickly do you want to be able to draw it?

With smart guides turned on so that the circles snap to the corners, that shape could be created in 10 seconds.

Then just save in a file for future use.

[Peter Normington]

2 seconds in signlab,
Peter 😀

[Jan Storgaard]

quote Peter Normington:

2 seconds in signlab,
Peter 😀

1 millisec from symbol library (:)

no offense ;O)

[Jan Storgaard]

quote TomPreston:

Hi.
This may seem like a ridiculous question, but I’m looking for a quick and easy way of drawing the attached shape in illustrator.

I am currently using Graphix Advantage Composer 6.2 to do my designing, which features a tool which allows me to simply draw out the shape and set the corner radius’ I need.

However I am struggling to find a way of making this shape quickly in illustrator, (the way I do it at the moment is draw a box at the back and 4 circles in front, then ‘minus front’ in pathfinder).

This is very time consuming compared to the way and accuracy I can do it with Composer.

Is there a plugin which allows me to simply draw this shape?

Also, does anyone know the correct name for this shape?! It may help me in searching for a solution.

Many thanks,

Tom

Tom, if you like, i can make you a screencast of it. Takes me 2 minutes. Drop me a mail if you want it…

Regards

[TomPreston]

quote Peter Normington:

2 seconds in signlab,
Peter 😀

I’m considering trying signlab to see if it is a more suitable upgrade for me. I’m finding doing things in illustrator is taking a lot longer than it does in composer.

Is signlab a similar program to composer?

Is there a trail version which I can download?

Thanks for all your help guys

[Peter Normington]

If You go to the cadlink.com website there is a demo download, and also videos etc what signlab can do

Peter

[Kev Mayger]

The shapes are already there Illustrator to edit to suit your own requirements.

Goto window – brush libraries – borders.

Kev

[Jan Storgaard]

quote Kev Mayger:

The shapes are already there Illustrator to edit to suit your own requirements.

Goto window – brush libraries – borders.

Kev

Did you try making a usable cutline from it ?
It will turn into many paths and nodes and make a poor cutfile.
You make be able to make a useable cutline, but then its quicker to do the rectangel and 4 circles stuff!….
ALSO sometimes you need different radius on corners and brushes dont have that.