Illustrator Cut Line

[acothran]

Greetings. I have a stock icon that I am attempting to print and cut (see pic). I'm much familiar with Photoshop and Illustrator is currently whipping me. So, the icon is several layers/objects, which are grouped but I'm not sure how to put a cut line around this group, to make a cut out of the house, without just drawing my own cut line with the Pen Tool. Right now, it wants to cut out the roof, door, window, etc separately. I tried working with Outline Stroke and had no luck. Any help is appreciated.

Thanks,
Allen

 

[Circleville Signs]

Draw your cut-line in a seperate layer in Illy. Looking at this shape it should take you about 2 minutes, tops.

If you're having trouble with it, feel free to email me your Illy file and I'll help you out. I'm dead today.

gary@circlevillesigns.com


Gary

 

[Bigdawg]

Select all of it, copy, then Ctrl+2 to lock down your original.

Ctrl F to paste a copy in front.

With everything still selected... Object---->Path---> Outline Stroke (if anything has a stroke on it)

select all

Pathfinder ----> Merge

You should have an outline of the house now exactly over your original.

While my original is still locked down I usually do a Select All and then click OFF the house outline and then hit delete. This gets rid of any stray points that may be left from the merge.

 

[cptcorn]

Select all of it, copy, then Ctrl+2 to lock down your original.

Ctrl F to paste a copy in front.

With everything still selected... Object---->Path---> Outline Stroke (if anything has a stroke on it)

select all

Pathfinder ----> Merge

You should have an outline of the house now exactly over your original.

While my original is still locked down I usually do a Select All and then click OFF the house outline and then hit delete. This gets rid of any stray points that may be left from the merge.

This is the best method.

 

[petepaz]

yeah what stacy said
or you can goto the object drop down menu and goto path and use the path offset

 

[petepaz]

yeah actually cptcorn's way is quicker

 

[acothran]

To everyone.....THANK YOU!!

Gary - I need to practice my pen tool. Thanks for the offer.

Stacy - Thanks for the detailed tutorial. I had to take a couple of additional step but you got me going in the right direction.

I get into Illy and want to Cmnd + click on the layer thumbnail to select the object....doesn't work that way. Photoshop and Illy look enough alike (i.e. tool palette) to make me think they are similar

Allen

 

[Gino]

yeah actually cptcorn's way is quicker

I thought that WAS Stacy's way all along ?? Just a copied quote.

 

[Wags]

Glad to see there are some Illustrator users on this forum. Rock on!!

 

[PMG]

if anyone wants it here is a detailed PDF on doing a cut line in illy.........