Comments on: Illustrator: Rid Yourself of Pesky “Expand Appearance” Woes

By: Lorraine

Lorraine — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 11:29:04 +0000

I design ‘cutting files’ for electronic cutting machines and this is invaluable. Thank you, so much for sharing your knowledge. :o)

By: Phil G

Phil G — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 00:01:58 +0000

Hi,

Scanned through this article and found it very helpful as I am not an illustrator bod but needed to use these techniques to output for vinyl. Many thanks.

This was the missing link after the below technique:

Use this technique after you have created an “Object> Compound path > Make” to remove any applied effects to your shapes such as 3D effect etc.

If you don’t do the above technique then I think it will revert your new shape back to a pre-applied effect state i.e before the 3d effect was applied.

Great article though and saved me lots of time :-)

By: desert_flower

desert_flower — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 14:50:57 +0000

thanx ^_^

By: prischan

prischan — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 03:16:37 +0000

great tip!

By: Sin

Sin — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 16:42:03 +0000

Thank bitt! JUST what i needed

By: Rebecca

Rebecca — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 22:39:11 +0000

Oh you are a mind-saver! Thanks for explaining that ridiculous expand appearance in such detail. It was driving me crazy when nothing happened. lol

By: Rhys

Rhys — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 18:02:04 +0000

Thanks for that tip, being a graphic design student i found this very helpful!
Thanks again.

By: Ben Lindsey

Ben Lindsey — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 21:14:37 +0000

You can do this same thing with Flatten Transparency but here are couple tips to help this process go even faster.

Instead of using steps 6-9 here, hold down option while you click the Add to Shape Area button in your pathfinder. That will expand your selection into one path as you click the button so you don’t need to hit expand afterwards.

Hide the selection using cmnd + 3.

Once hidden, you can select all to find the empty paths and delete those.

Unhide your selection using cmnd + option + 3 and you’re done.

Hope this helps shave a couple seconds off your final time!

PS: The merge feature in the pathfinder will still leave you with strokes around your graphic which will defeat the purpose of this tutorial.

By: Kristin Puls

Kristin Puls — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 03:38:06 +0000

I read this post when you first wrote it, but didn’t have anything to apply it to. Well, tonight I’ve been working on this concert logo that is a silhouette of a girl with crazy wavy hair … and I was ready to put my foot through this very expensive monitor of mine! Thankfully, I trusted in Bittbox and checked the archives. Voila! Insanity relieved. Your blog is better than Prozac.

Heart.

By: Amazing, Adorable, Ambitious and Astonishing Links of April | Malene Hald

Amazing, Adorable, Ambitious and Astonishing Links of April | Malene Hald — Thu, 01 May 2008 20:21:55 +0000

[...] Illustrator: Rid Yourself of Pesky “Expand Appearance” Woes [...]

By: Keigan Boarding Apparel

Keigan Boarding Apparel — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 03:43:52 +0000

Bitt, this tutorial has helped me out the most in what I am doing. Solid work! Thank you for the website and priceless tips.

Vic

By: mel

mel — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 12:13:35 +0000

Thanks, I found this helpful, and also everyones elses tips in the comments. Amazing how many different ways of doing it there are – adobe software just rocks!
http://melsbrushes.wordpress.com

By: paul

paul — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 17:27:29 +0000

Oh, the merge tool did work though.

Thanks Andy.

By: paul

paul — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 17:25:14 +0000

Very nice! Thanks!

By: facundo

facundo — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 15:24:03 +0000

muchas gracias necesitaba aprender esto

By: putik!

putik! — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 17:36:05 +0000

great! just great!

By: Karina

Karina — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 02:44:37 +0000

Hi Bitt,

this was so handy!

On another note is it just me or has your page looked a little broken for the past 2 days? the right column is now at the bottom and looks a little wrong.

great blog all the same!

By: Ryan Malm

Ryan Malm — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 14:49:26 +0000

I love this blog so much! I learn as much from the comments as from Bitt (Thanks to everyone, and Bitt)
Andy’s right… you still have to expand appearance first, but merge gets rid of the empties and combines your shapes in 1 step! Thanks Andy.

By: andy

andy — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 14:01:56 +0000

Hey,
I’ve just read this tutorial and I highly recommend the “merge” tool under “Pathfinder”. It eliminates the need to go through all the other steps.

By: anewmedia

anewmedia — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 10:08:48 +0000

you might like to use a simple script that is available to download from grafix website , this will you just go to file > scripts and close all paths .
Or select > open paths and with one click you can delete all unwanted lines. The script can be found at
http://www.aivault.com/?p=129