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Shapes are not merging into one solid piece
I am trying to make a solid black shape from a design I made. I need it to be one piece because I am sending it to be routed and the program will pick up the lines and cut them. I have outlined text, paths, and even expanded appearances. I highlighted the whole design and made it black and then used the pathfinder tool to merge it together. I’ve also divided it and merged it to see if it would make a difference.
I actually do this quite often so some help for this problem would be greatly appreciated!
This is the original design
Here’s an image of what happens when I select all and merge
Thanks in advance!!!
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3 Replies
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Not sure if this will work, but I suggest making a copy, deleting all the internal graphics, and then trying to merge only the items that are on the perimeter.
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What Ivan said, plus you may need to release compound shapes first for some of the shapes to unite.
Occasionally I’ve had to separately select the individual pieces, cut them to the clipboard and paste in place one by one in order to release the compounds if they have been generated originally in some other program than Illustrator.
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Thanks for the input guys. I actually think I found a work around on accident.
I made a pdf of my design for a test print to check the colors. Then, I decided I try to make the solid shape from that file instead of my original ai file. The “unknown image construct encountered” notice came up so I’m not sure if that solved the problem for me because when I highlighted all, changed to one color, and merged it all into one it worked.
In case this doesn’t work in the future, I will try these methods also, thanks again, definitely appreciated!
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