- [Voiceover] In this movie we'll take a look at
a handful of additional Pathfinder options
that are a little bit obscure
but you might find them helpful.
And so I'm going to start off by zooming in
on this collection of shapes right here.
And I'll go ahead and marquee them like so.
And then, notice here in the Pathfinder panel
that we have a flyout menu
in the upper right hand corner.
If you go ahead and click on it
you'll find, among other commands,
this guy right there:
Make Compound Shape.
And if you go ahead and choose that command,
then you'll fuse your path outlines
into a dynamic compound shape.
Which means that you can edit your shapes
to any extent you like.
So for example,
I'll just go ahead and double click on
any one of these guys in order to enter the isolation mode,
at which point I can go ahead and
select this ring for example,
and move it independently of the other two shapes.
I can even change the way the shapes interact
by Alt clicking,
or Option clicking on a Mac,
on any one of the shape mode icons.
And so for example,
if I were to Alt or Option click on the minus front icon,
that second icon in the first row,
I would end up subtracting the selected ring
from the shapes behind it.
At which point if I'm happy with what I see,
I can just go ahead and press the Escape key
in order to exit the isolation mode.
All right, you also have the option
of releasing your path outlines if you like,
and you can do that by just clicking on
any one of these paths in order to select
the entire compound shape.
Then, return to that flyout menu icon
and choose Release Compound Shape
which is gonna restore the independent path outlines
complete with their original fills and strokes.
All right, but let's say that's not what I want.
I'll just go ahead and press Control + Z,
or Command + Z on a Mac,
to undo that change.
Instead, what I wanna do,
is expand these shapes to static path outlines.
And you can do that by
either returning to the flyout menu
and choosing Expand Compound Shape
or even more handy,
you've got this Expand button right here.
And so if I go ahead and click on that,
I'm gonna end up expanding the path outlines.
Notice I'm no longer seeing the ring
which means that I now have static path outlines.
In the form,
as I can see up here
on the far left side of the control panel,
of a compound path.
And so that means if I start dragging
any one of these path outlines around
I'm gonna move them all at once
because Illustrator sees them as a single path outline.
If that's not what I want,
if I wanna break them up further,
then I can go up to the Object menu,
choose Compound Path,
and then choose Release,
at which point now if I click off one of the paths
and then drag this guy for example,
I can see that all three path outlines
are now entirely independent.
All right, now I want you to notice
this command right here,
called Pathfinder Options.
It allows you to subtly adjust the behavior
of a few Pathfinder operations.
And so to see how that works,
I'll go ahead and scroll over to this guy right here,
and I'll click on this big purple square
and then I'll drag it over like so,
while pressing the Shift and Alt keys,
that would be Shift and Option on the Mac,
and I'm gonna go ahead and drop this guy
right about there,
so that I end up duplicating the square
and the two squares are aligned
with each other horizontally.
Now I'll go ahead and marquee the path outlines,
and I want you to notice that we have anchor points here,
as well as here up here at the top of the shapes,
and we've got another pair at this location
and right about there.
And so notice,
if I were to click on the Unite icon,
I'm not Alt clicking,
I'm just clicking on it
in order to create a static path outline.
We end up keeping those anchor points
right there along the top of the shape
and down here at the bottom,
the straight segments as well.
Even though, technically speaking,
they're not really necessary.
They're what's known as redundant points.
If you don't want that,
then just go ahead and press Control + Z,
or Command + Z on the Mac,
and then return to that flyout menu icon
and choose Pathfinder Options
and then turn on this checkbox right there,
Remove Redundant Points and click OK.
And now notice if I once again click on the Unite icon
that Illustrator ends up getting rid
of those redundant points,
both the ones up here at the top of the path outline,
as well as these guys down here
on the bottom horizontal segments.
All right, now I'm gonna move down to this Divide demo here
and I'll marquee the path outlines,
and I'll click on Divide,
which is the first icon in the second row.
Now as you may recall,
that ends up delivering a group,
and so I'm going to bust up these shapes
by going up to the Object menu
and choosing the Ungroup command
or I can press Control + Shift + G,
or Command + Shift + G on a Mac.
And now I'll click off the paths
and I'll drag them to different locations
so that we can see that I have once again
traced this negative space,
to which I'll assign a default fill and stroke
by pressing the D key,
just so that we can see it.
All right, so let's say
you don't wanna trace the negative space,
then, just for the sake of demonstration,
I'll scroll over to these shapes right there,
and marquee them once again,
and then I'll return to the flyout menu icon
in upper right corner of the Pathfinder panel,
and choose Pathfinder Options.
And then I'll turn on this second checkbox,
Divide and Outline Will Remove Unpainted Artwork,
and click OK.
And now notice if I click on the Divide icon,
once again, inside the Pathfinder panel,
and press Control + Shift + G,
or Command + Shift + G on a Mac,
to ungroup the path outlines.
Now if I drag this guy away and then marquee this area,
I no longer have a path outline around that negative space.
And so if you don't like ending up
with these extra path outlines
when working with Divide or Outline,
then again go ahead and choose Pathfinder Options
and turn on the second checkbox.
And that, folks, is how you work with the extra,
pretty darn obscure,
but sometimes useful Pathfinder Options
here inside Illustrator.