Where is pathfinder in illustrator cs5

If the Minus Front doesn't work, I will sometimes use Divide instead. This usually works just fine and I can then delete the section that belong to the upper image, leaving me with the solid background with a shape cut out of it. However, today I'm having an issue with the Pathfinder options messing with my paths. As you can see below, my shapes are perfectly symmetrical when I place them on the background.

The pink shape is the one I want to be cut out of the background. I then tried using the Minus Front tool from the Pathfinder, and these were my results:.

As you can see, my shapes have been distorted and messed up after applying the Pathfinder option. I tried this with the Divide tool as well and got the exact same results. I've done this process with much more complex shapes in the past, so I know the Pathfinder can handle it, I'm just not sure what could be causing this.

I've also tried using "Expand Appearance" because that usually fixes my wonky problems with shapes in AI, but I had no luck there as well. It's because the document was created in web mode. Create a new document in print mode, paste your objects in that new print document, and then try to use the pathfinder tool again. Just wasted an hour on this problem! Solved thanks to Distorted shape after using pathfinder illustrator cc.

This may be too late for rhumbrecht, but the Rounded Corners effect is more than likely the culprit. The two key pieces of evidence are 1. Remember in a Minus Front operation, that the front object is discarded. The foreground object becomes part of the background object, and inherits any effect applied to the background object.

If in doubt, always Show edges from the View menu. You'll see a discrepancy between the outline 'artwork' below and the preview 'result'. I just ran into this problem. The cause for me was that when I created the document, I had selected "Align to pixel grid"in the Advanced section of the new document dialog. I'm not sure how to disable this after creating the document, but luckily for me it was a simple icon and creating a new document with pixel grid alignment off solved the issue. Sign up to join this community.

The pathfinder tool is essential away to manipulate objects, allowing you to combine, subtract, and otherwise define new objects using what you already have. Go check them out before you get started here.

Once you have two shapes selected, here are examples of the different Adobe Illustrator pathfinder functions. There are several oddities with using the pathfinder which are beyond the scope of this post. He received his bachelor's of science in Integrative Studies with a focus on Chemistry and Biology in , and earned a PhD in Cancer Biology in He now created multimedia science communication pieces such as infographics and animations to make science more widely accessible.

Username or Email Address. Remember Me. Don't have an account? Gaius J Augustus. Tutorial: Adobe Illustrator Pathfinder Panel. Follow along with the Pathfinder Panel Tutorial! Grab a downloadable tutorial to get more practice.

Get it now. Compound shape created C. Individual shape modes applied to each component D. Style applied to entire compound shape. You can include paths, compound paths, groups, other compound shapes, blends, text, envelopes, and warps in a compound shape.

Any open paths you select are automatically closed. Each component of the compound shape is assigned the shape mode you select. Select Make Compound Shape from the Pathfinder panel menu. Each component of the compound shape is assigned the Add mode by default. Note: You never need to change the mode of the backmost component, because that mode isn't relevant to the compound shape. To sustain maximum performance, create complex compound shapes by nesting other compound shapes containing up to about 10 components each instead of using many individual components.

Releasing a compound shape separates it back into separate objects. Expanding a compound shape maintains the shape of the compound object, but you can no longer select the individual components. The shape layers and layer clipping paths vector masks in Adobe Photoshop are types of compound shapes.

You can import shape layers and layer clipping paths into Illustrator as compound shapes and continue to manipulate them. In addition, you can export compound shapes to Photoshop. Keep the following in mind when using compound shapes with Photoshop:. Only compound shapes that reside at the top level of the layer hierarchy are exported to Photoshop as shape layers.

A compound shape painted with a stroke using a join other than round, or with a weight in points that is not an integer, is rasterized when exported to the PSD file format. A compound path contains two or more paths that are painted so that holes appear where paths overlap. When you define objects as a compound path, all objects in the compound path take on the paint and style attributes of the backmost object in the stacking order.

Use the Direct Selection tool or the Group Selection tool to select part of a compound path. You can manipulate the shape of individual components of a compound path, but you can't change appearance attributes, graphic styles, or effects for individual components, and you can't manipulate components individually in the Layers panel. If you want more flexibility when creating compound paths, you can create a compound shape and then expand it. Nonzero winding fill rule. Uses mathematical equations to determine if a point is outside or inside a shape.

Illustrator uses the nonzero winding rule as the default rule. Even-odd fill rule. Self-intersecting paths are paths that intersect themselves. When you create a nonzero winding compound path, you can specify whether overlapping paths appear with holes or are filled by clicking a Reverse Path Direction button in the Attributes panel.

Four circular paths B. Circular paths selected, converted into compound path C. Reverse Path Direction applied to innermost path. Using the Direct Selection tool, select the part of the compound path to reverse. Don't select the entire compound path. Legal Notices Online Privacy Policy. Adobe Illustrator Features What's New. Buy now. Combine objects Search. Methods of combining objects. Pathfinder effects. Compound shapes. Compound paths. Combine objects using Pathfinder effects.

Navigate the Pathfinder panel. Choose from the following shape modes:. Adds the area of the component to the underlying geometry. Cuts out the area of the component from the underlying geometry. Uses the area of the component to clip the underlying geometry as a mask would. Specify Pathfinder options. Removes unnecessary points as you click a Pathfinder button.

Deletes any unfilled objects in the selected artwork as you click the Divide or Outline button. Apply Pathfinder effects. Apply a Pathfinder effect using the Effects menu.

Do one of the following:.