Pathfinder: Explained
If you aren’t familiar with Illustrator’s extremely handy “Pathfinder” palette, you might sit down for a few moments to play with it, because it is a true time saver, and an excellent tool for manipulating paths. First, of all let me say that “Pathfinder” is a horrible name for this palette. It doesn’t actually “find” paths. It makes it easy to combine paths, divide objects, subtract shapes, etc.
Above is a screenshot of the pathfinder palette. You’ll notice 11 buttons right away. In this tutorial, I will be explaining the 5 buttons on the top row, and the differences between them. The bottom 6 buttons are a little more advanced, but I’ll give you some pointers about those at the end of the tutorial.
To follow along: Open a new Illustrator document and create any 2 shapes you like. I used a rounded rectangle and a star. I will use the same 2 shapes in each example.
1. Combining Shapes
Here we will be combining the paths of 2 shapes, to create 1 single path out of the 2 with the click of a button. First overlap your 2 shapes similar to this:
Now, with BOTH shapes selected, click the “Add to Shape Area” button in the pathfinder:
Now you should see something like below. Notice that the pathfinder changes the fill color of both shapes to the color of the top shape.
Essentially, all pathfinder did was it made a compound path out of your 2 shapes, and made them have the same fill color. Now, If you immediately hit the “Expand” button, Pathfinder actually creates a single path to define the compound shape. (Note, if you don’t hit the Expand button immediately after the Add to Shape Area button, it will get grayed out, so you have to do it right after)
After clicking Expand, you should see a single path:
2. Subtracting Shapes
This is a neat one because you can basically use any shape as an eraser or “cookie cutter” so to speak. Overlap your 2 shapes similar to this:
Now, with BOTH shapes selected, click the “Subtract from Shape Area” button in the Pathfinder.
What this does is Illustrator subtracts the top shape from the bottom shape. The shape doing the subtracting must be on top.
You’ll probably notice that the path from the top shape is still there, so immediately click the “Expand” button in pathfinder to get rid of the extra paths left behind from your cookie cutter.
And you should now have a single clean path to work with:
3. Intersecting Shapes
The next pathfinder feature is the ability to intersect shapes. What this means is overlapping 2 shapes, and getting rid of anything that ISN”T overlapped. So to start, overlapp your 2 shapes similar to below.
Now, with BOTH shapes selected, click the “Intersect Shape Areas” button in the pathfinder.
Illustrator gets rid of everything except the parts of the 2 shapes that were overlapped:
You notice the paths from the original 2 shapes still there, so immediately click the “Expand” button in the Pathfinder to make a single path around your overlapped shape, while getting rid of the 2 original paths.
And you now have a single, clean path made out of the overlapping section of the original 2:
4. Excluding Overlapped Shapes
This Pathfinder feature is the exact opposite of #3. Instead of getting rid of everything that isn’t overlapped, it gets rid of everything that IS. Overlapp your 2 shapes, similar to below.
Now, with BOTH shapes selected, click on the “Exclude Overlapping Shape Areas” button in the pathfinder.
Illustrator excludes any shape areas that were overlapping at all, like this:
It isn’t the case here, but if your shapes are complex and you see extra paths in the excluded areas, click the Expand button to get rid of the paths left behind.
Tips for exploring this on your own:
I didn’t cover the bottom row of buttons in the Pathfinder palette because it would get extremely confusing. Essentially the bottom row buttons perform a number of combinations of the top buttons. For example the “Divide” button will divide the bottom shape with the top shape, AND the top shape with the bottom shape all at the same time.
I encourage you to explore the Pathfinder for a few minutes on your own. It just may make your life a little “bitt” easier :)
Related Posts:
- Random Free Vectors Part 2 - Rounded Squares
- Illustrator: Rid Yourself of Pesky “Expand Appearance” Woes
- Illustrator 101: One Gradient Across Multiple Paths
- Illustrator Tutorial: How To Make 3D Vector Vintage Stars
- Improve Your Illustrator Workflow with Layer Masking
- Illustrator: How to Make Custom Swooshes, Swirls, and Curls
Pathfinder is easily one of my favorite tools.
Didn’t know about the ‘Expand’ button.
Holding the Alt key while pressing one of the pathfinder buttons will automatically expand. This way you want forget pressing the expand button after using a pathfinder tool.
Awesome! Thanks John!
I don’t know why I’ve been so confused by Pathfinder. Thanks for explaining it so clearly and with good visuals.
I just found your site and am loving it. Thank you!!
I don’t understand all this fuss about expanding the compound path right away. You don’t lose the option of expanding when you go off and do other things after creating the compound path; you can always click back on the compound path and the expand button comes back. You can also double click on the compound path to be taken “inside” it so you can fiddle with the positioning of it’s elements. In this way, you don’t actually have to commit to the expanded path until you are really sure it is what you want.
cool tip! big thanks! will come back again.
Very useful information. Thanks. I have a little problem with compound shapes and blends: I created a compound shape and expanded it (place a small circle on top of a large circle -> select both objects -> Subtract from Shape Area -> Expand = a donut shape). I then added a smaller shape on top and tried to apply a smooth color blend, but it doesn’t work as I expected. The blend also fills in the inner circle, the empty part of the “donut”, which I want to remain empty. Is there a way to apply the blend just to the ring? By the way, I discovered that even after clicking “Expand”, I can still return a compound shape to the separate original shapes by clicking Object -> Compound Path -> Release, which I didn’t think would be possible after having expanded it.
[...] Click on the ?Add to Shape Area Button,? and then the ?Expand? button, in that order. Read this post if you don?t know how to use the [...]
Good work! Thanks for this information!
Thanks so much–I coudn’t figure out something but you explained it so simply that I managed to do it. :D
I’m wondering: is there a way to subtract from two objects/paths below something without combining the colors?
You could make your stencil and then go to Object>Path>Divide Objects Below. I think that might work. But you only need the stencil selected. (the path doing the actual cutting.
~Bitt
Many thanks–I’m a self-taught graphics lover and you’ve opened some tools to me that I hadn’t used before. Excellent text and graphics that make it very easy to learn.
very good information, thanks for sharing. I know it help make it simple so i can keep working at a steady pace.
I know this is several months old, but I just wanted to say thanks very much!
Woohooo! I just used this info on subtracting shapes to fix the problems that I was having with the non-transparency issues of my VectorMagic b/w logo. Thank you so much! It was a bit time-consuming at first, but once I figured it out it went pretty quickly. :-)
Thanks for the great explanantion… can you post an explanation like this for the rest of the pathfinder buttons? those things still chap my ass!
Thanks for the review, but still, i’m stuck with trimming the lines outside the box. These Pathfinder buttons seem to work fine with polygons.
Is there a way to trim line segments with anything? After you apply clipping mask, you always have to clean up empty paths.
Regards,
Sasha
Hi how do you select 2 objects after you expand, so you can subtract? I’ve had Illustartor 10 on my computer for ages and finally, came across. VERY helpful! oh another question. I recreated a logo and then flattened the layers, but when i try moving it to a new artboard (document) only parts of it was selected. What do i do to select the whole image so I can move it to another document?
cheers
Sophia
Thank you! I’ve been looking for how to do this.
Now I won’t have to keep restarting Illustrator after crashes from complex clipping masks…
[...] Click on the “Add to Shape Area Button,” and then the “Expand” button, in that order. Read this post if you don’t know how to use the [...]
Icons, Logos & Co. selbstgemacht…
Icons & Logos. Viele setzen sie in ihren Webseiten oder Weblogs ein. Wobei viele von denen hierbei oft auf bereits bestehende Icon-Pakte zurück greifen. Wie aber ein Logo oder Icon in wenigen Schritten selbst erstellt werden kann, zeigt …
Great tut, I didn’t know about the pathfinder tool expand button, and i was doing this tutorial… long story short they didn’t tell me to hit the expand tool (I’ma n00b) spent at least 3 hours lost. Bitt you kick ass thanx for helping me evolve from a n00b (long way to go though)
Nice tutorial. Thanks!