[Vincent Rosati]

Hey Tim – I’m almost certain that the path in the C is cut, or is otherwise multiple paths.
Maybe try resetting the path and fill of the compound object, than try Pathfinder / Unite. This could clean the C. Than retry the graphic style.
If that doesn’t work, test all of the problem points in the C with the Direct Select to. You’d be looking for broken paths, by moving the points. If you do find a broken path you would use the Join command.

Worst case scenario, upload the file and someone will fix it.

Just some initial thoughts.

Vince

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[Vincent Rosati]

Out of curiosity, how much did you pay for this?
I’ll agree, the files don’t appear to be of sufficient quality, but I don’t know the specifics of your agreement.

-Make this into an Illustrator file
VS
-Create a print ready vector version of said artwork.

A few things you can do to help the illustrator would be to provide fonts and any vectors they might need, like your logo. Unless redesigning your logo was part of the agreement.
The illustrator merged the die line into the raster artwork, not sure why that was done.
There are a bunch of things I could note about the file. Do you get any more revisions?

There are many illustrators on this site. You can click on their name, go to their profile and see if you can contact them.
I suspect you would get better quality work from someone here, but obviously would have to pay significantly more.

Vince

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[Vincent Rosati]

Usually when AI can’t complete a join it gives you a message, like ‘You can only join endpoints’ or something.
Is it possible that these aren’t endpoints, or that there might be stray points at the same location?
You can examine this by entering View / Outline mode, than using the Direct Selection tool to move some points around to look for strays.

You might also just try Align / Horizontal Align Center, in the Align palette. Select the 2 points and set the tool to Align to Selection. This will, at least, bring them together.

Just some initial thoughts.

Vince

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[Vincent Rosati]

Welcome AJ.

I guess there are at least two approaches, depending on what you need.

1 – Tile Raster
You could paste a raster tile into the Illustrator file, than drag it into the Swatches palette. Now you can fill any object with this tile.

2 – Vector
Just draw it. You could also do a vector version of the approach above.

To create a 1″ square, select the Rectangle tool (M) and click on the artboard. A prompt will open where you can enter the size.

To create a grid out of boxes, make sure Snapping is enabled.
Hold Option(Mac)+Shift and click on one of the points of the box, dragging it to the next position, while utilizing the snapping function.
You now have an operation loaded and you can duplicate by pressing CMD+D, this will repeat the duplicates.
Now you have 1 row (or column). Than do the same with the row to complete the grid.

Another option might be to utilize the Object / Blend function.
Make 2 parallel paths, say 10″ apart.
Select both of them and Object / Blend / Make.
Than go into the blend settings and set it to use Specified Steps: 9. This will programmatically generate lines. Might give you some more flexibility.

Just some initial thoughts.

Vince

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[Vincent Rosati]

Try – Object / Expand

Vince

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[Vincent Rosati]

You could try a Clipping Mask.
Use the Rectangle tool and create a box, positioned half way over the image. Than select both objects and…
Object / Clipping Mask / Make.
This gives you the basic idea of how you might do it.

You could potentially make opacity masks, but that would probably be overkill in this case.

Depending on the type of pixel art, there might be other options…

If it’s low rez 8-bit type stuff, you might be better off just recreating as vector, out of 1px blocks with snapping enabled.

Or if you don’t need vector, just higher resolution, maybe you could just knock out your backgrounds in Photoshop. And if you need higher resolution, just increase the resolution from 72 to 720 using Nearest Neighbor interpolation.

This seems more like a Photoshop task. Do you really need AI for this?

Just some random thoughts.

Vince

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[Vincent Rosati]

Based on the last highlight in the video, it looks like it’s actually deleting the text, not making it invisible.

Can you verify?
Have you solved this?

Vince

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[Vincent Rosati]

I’m using an older version, it still has CMD + H. I’m guessing that’s been removed in CC?

If AI isn’t showing a shortcut for it in the View menu than I suspect that it wouldn’t even be scriptable, that hey are no longer providing a hook for that function.

Vince

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[Vincent Rosati]

I think the short answer is no. It made me think of Cinema 4D, where you can do this, select any number of points, planes, or edges and define them as a single selectable item.

But I think you can still achieve what you want to do.
To your description of not being able to select inside an object without selecting the object…

Ctrl + Y = Outline Mode, or View / Outline.

Now you can use the Direct Select or Lasso tool to select and move only the points of objects, and not move the parent object.

Vince

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[Vincent Rosati]

Check your Links palette to find verify that they are indeed placed.

Attempt 1:
File / Save As.
Not sure about the latest versions, but Illustrator files always kept containers for pasted or rasterized objects. Even if they are deleted the container remains and file size never reduces. Save As will delete the containers.

Attempt 2:
Do you need PDF preview? If not, uncheck Create PDF Compatible File while saving.

And make sure there are no stray points outside the artboard, or anywhere actually.

Just some initial thoughts.

Vince

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