[Les Nemeth]

Print “these”? What are “these”? Cheese?

It happened to me recently that colored items turned black when outputted to PDF.

Turned out, my layer got corrupted. So I had to create a new layer, move the item into the new layer, re-color it. Solved.

[Les Nemeth]

What does “affordable” mean? Two grand? Three grand? Ten bucks?
You can go to https://www.download.com, search for “animation” and filter by “Free”. That would be the most affordable solution 🙂

[Les Nemeth]

Well, we have never used CS3. We directly upgraded from CS2 to CS4, but in CS4 I can use the “Arial Narrow Bold” just fine (TrueType).

[Les Nemeth]

Practice makes perfect.

[Les Nemeth]

Nope. I can import a 22″x9″ @300 just fine.
Try to trash your preferences, see if it helps. Sometimes the prefs file can do all sorts of stupid screw ups.

[Les Nemeth]

So what exactly is the problem? Fonts should be outlined anyway so you don’t have to send your fonts to the printer.

[Les Nemeth]

Use blends. Eg, make 4+ lines as in the figure below. Color them appropriately, then blend:
Blend 1

You can also create fancy blends this way, eg a CD/DVD:
CD-ROM

[Les Nemeth]

Try this:
https://www.shinycore.com/products/pathstyler/path-styler-pro-illustrator.htm

[Les Nemeth]

Google is your friend.
https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/exchange/index.cfm?event=extensionDetail&extid=1045333

[Les Nemeth]

You can’t cut the round hole since it’s part of a compound path. Either cut the whole compound path, or release it first, modify your hole, then make it compound again.

You can, however, edit a compound path. So if you just wanna modify the hole, change it’s size, or modify it’s anchor, then you can do that with the direct selection tool.