Compound Path Type Container

I was able to get text to wrap around the center image. But I also need the text to wrap around the square voids in this image, which here, it is of course not doing. I combined the square shapes in the background with the silhouette pictured here as a compound path using the "minus front" pathfinder tool thinking that if it was one object I could then convert the whole shape into a type container, but I soon learned that the "area type tool" will not work on compound paths. Any workaround on this? PS: clipping mask was no good because it cuts the text where the no-fill parts are as opposed to having the text flow about the un-filled areas. Any suggestions greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Very nice. So I made the background a type container and the "cut-outs" into objects in order to use the text wrap functionality. It worked!!! Thank you very much...
J

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Compound Path Trouble - Type to Outlines

I've had these issues for years, wherein I'll convert some type to outlines, and the counters of letterforms that have them are filled in!
The paths are still there, but no amount of futzing or making compound, or releasing and trying again, will make them come back.*
Has anyone developed a fix to this problem?
If so, thank you for sharing it with me!
katt
*Sometimes it turns out that a duplicate path is directly on top of another, but most of the time, the "compoundness" seems broken, for lack of better phrasing..

If you
Create outliens form type
Release compound path
then try to make this a compound path again
your result wil be broken compoiunf paths
If you
Create outliens form type
Release compound path
Ungroup
then try to make this a compound path again
your result will be good

Type - Compound Paths, not working?

so i know i have done this many times i the past, but i'm back in Illustrator afer a long absense and have some type I'm needing to get converted to workable outlines (compound paths?) so that i can do custom tweeking of letters for a logo.
i put the type in, i go type > create outlines but then i cant seem to get to the place where it has a lot of anchors along the path of the type that i can manipulate it? all im getting is each letter in its own square box with 4 corner anchors. i have done every things, including all the compond path comands i think
what the heck am I doing wrong, I have been reading help guides for 2 hours!
Font: Bauhaus 93 (but i have tried a number of font now and all the same issue)
MacOS 10.7.4
Illustrator CS3

Two things I would do. From the View menu choose Hide Bounding Box (Cmd(Ctrl)-Shift-B is the toggle). Then if you use the Direct Select tool (Open Arrow) you sholuld be able to select the individual paths.

Hello Creative Cloud Illustrator Community. Help Please! This is with regard to compound paths and transparencies. I have set some type on a circle and then created outlines. I then placed the outlined type on a black stroked ring which I then selected "o

Hello Creative Cloud Illustrator Community:
Help Please!
This is with regard to creating a compound path:
I have set some white type on a circle and then created outlines. I then placed the outlined type on a black stroked ring which I then selected "outlined stroke." I then put both "outlined" graphical elements on a separate solid bkg. (all 3 are on the same layer). Lastly, I then selected the top two elements and went to "make" a "compound path" (because I want the type to be the "holes" so I can see through to the background). However, the only effect I get is the white outlined type turning black (the same color as the black ring). What am i doing wrong? I can achieve the desired result with simple boxes but it won't work with a circular type path, a stroked ring and a solid bkg.
Any help on this would be greatly appreciated!
Thank You!

Thanks for the response Jacob.
Unfortunately, I tried your suggestion with no success. BTW, minus front is now Subtract. Apparently, by clicking option>subtract, it works in the same way as minus front. I tried this to no avail.
Let me reiterate please.
I have 3 graphic elements-all on the same layer:
1. Background: Gold circle with a fill and no stroke.
2. Middle: Black ring (Stroked) inside gold background circle.
3. Top: White copy set on a circular type path and placed directly on top of middle black ring.
Both the middle black ring and top type path HAVE BEEN CONVERTED TO OUTLINES.
LASTLY, I select the Middle and Top, go to Compound Paths and choose "Make" and my white copy turns to black. Wrong!
WHAT I WANT TO HAPPEN: I want the white copy to become HOLES, so the GOLD background shows through.
Any solutions would be very much appreciated!

"Release Compound Path" grayed out

I converted a single letter into an outline using the selection tool and "Create Oultines" in the "Type" menu. Now I want to manipulate a point in that outline. When I tried to select "Release Compound Paths" from the "Object" "Paths" menu, it was grayed out. The same thing happens when I use the same process but select the type with the Type tool instead of the Selection tool. What am I doing wrong?

Do you have the text box selected rather than the just the outlined text itself (this is the only way that I could reproduce the problem you are describing):
The text box seems to stay around the outlined text and this happens when you convert the text to outline while highlighting it. You need to create the outlines by selecting the text box as a whole (not just the text it contains) with the selection tool and then convert to outlines.

Can someone explain to me what are the benefits of compound path when it comes to text? I can understand one or two lines but a whole paragraph?

Every year we do a fundraiser to help my job, but my co-worker is getting frustrated. We receive outside files laid out in Illustrator, but the person who does the file sets all of the text using compound path. These aren't one or two lines of text to be manipulated but whole paragraphs of text. This person does this every year, and it is time consuming if my co-worker can't manipulate a paragraph without going to each individual layer that has a letter. Is there a way to make these compound paths merge as one without altering the document i.e. make some element disappear. Any kind of help is appreciated.

ikaika,
As I (mis)understand it, you should simply ask this outside person to keep all text as Live Type, using a font that you have on your machines (in the exact same version) so there will be no font substitution issue(s).
That way, you could get the job done without silly waste of time.
Failing to comply would seem quite uncooperative.
I presume there is no copyright question onvolved in this.

Compound path envelope disort - urgent - please help!

So, I really need to do a "car of the year" type of badge in illustrator.
I have the flags vector (grouped) and the hallow circle created whith the shape builder tool as a compound path. (see image).
And now, the obvoius problem. The only thing I could think of to achieve this result wast the envelope disort tool - make with top object. But then, ctrl-alt-c, bag!, error:
Now, obviously I understand why I get the error, my "hallow circle" is a compound path, but how do I convert it into a compatible shape?
Or is it an other way to get the same effect? I've tried the warp option but it just doesn't have a circle, just arch and it doesn't suit my needs. It looks crapy with warp.
Please help me! I've tryed everyting I could've think of, even importing photoshop paths... how can I make this badge work? I just couln't find a way to transform the compound path into an admitted shape. And my client really needs this badge for a franchise event at the end of the month.
This is where I got by using the warp tool but it looks bad, I want lager flags and I can't do that whitout screwing the arch meshed into a crappy circle... plese help me

Art brushes won't repeat.
Look for the element that's not allowed, because brushes are an ideal way to do this.
Look for gradients, pixel art or type.
Try this art:
http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/exchange/index.cfm?event=extensionDetail&extid=1045620

Illustrator CC Compound Path backward compatibility issues

I have a file created in CS6, it contains compound paths, it will not open correctly in CC. I have saved it as .eps, and down to illustrator 10 with no success on CC. CC drops many of the paths, and creates bizarre transparencies that do not exist in the original file. I need to share this file (and many others like it) with colleagues who are on CC... but cannot figure out what is going on. Any suggestions are welcome as I've hit a wall here... I've never seen anything like it.
Links to the files in question:
Saved to v10: Dropbox - badconversion_AI10.ai
Saved to EPS from CS6 Dropbox - badconversion.eps
Thanks.

When opening your CS6 file in CC it looks like this:
The EPS looks like this:
The Ai 10 looks like this:
Since I don't know how it should look, I can't know what went wrong.
Usually if you just hand them the CS6 file it should cause the least problems. Converting it to EPS or Ai10 makes no sense at all when all the other people use Illustrator CC.

Simple Icon, Difficult Compound Path Issue

Hey everyone,
Need a little help here. Ive created this very simple icon:
The airplane is a single object as is the runway. The two objects are grouped. There are a total of 9 compound paths that I see. The landing struts have 8 plus the 1 stripe in the middle of the runway. The problem I'm having appears only when I reduce the image down to around an inch. (Image is enlarged for better viewing)
I'm assuming its the compound paths that make this happen but can't be 100% sure. Im completely baffled because Ive never experienced this with any other compound path and this is an extremely simple group of objects!
My work around was to export as a hires png and then place it back in illustrator and trace as a sillohette. It solved the problem but this doesn't make any sense since when it was traced it still made the same compound paths. Right?
Any input would be most appreciated.
Thanks in advance.

c,
John has it. Just to elaborate a bit:
You may select everything and then untick Align to Pixel Grid in the Transform palette, and also untick Align New Objects to Pixel Grid in the flyout options.
You may avoid document types with that as default (RGB for web and the like) or change the default for such documents.

Punch hole without compound path?

I have a shape where I then need to punch a hole in that shape. If I do that it then creates a compound path.
The problem is I am want to use the Area Type Tool to then paste some text within the shape - but it won't allow me to do that as you can't do that on a compound shape.
But what I would like to do is make the text flow in and around the shape I've created. So as you can see below I need to remove the triangle in the center so the text flows around to form the letter A.
Any ideas or help would be greatly appreciated.

greencode,
You could cheat and create two shapes, the upper one ending at the bottom of the counter (the hole) i the A (You may have to adjust exactly where you cut between the two simple closed paths) and let the Type flow from one to the other. I am still with 10, so I am unable to describe exactly how to do the latter. Hopefully, someone else will give the instructions.
Someone?

Compound path inside/outside test

Is there an API for testing if a point is inside or outside of a specific compound path? I've found stuff for the length/area, but not inside outside. I supposed I could implement it myself but that kind of code tends to have a lot of fiddly <= vs < sensitivity when implementing the winding rule, and I'd rather not re-invent the wheel when illustrator is obviously already able to do this test. (Plus I could take advantage of whatever acceleration code illustrator already has for this test.)
If there's a individual path inside outside test, I don't mind tallying things up for the components of the compound path, but I didn't even find that. I'm probably just missing something obvious.
Thanks,
PS (I'm still back using CS2 since that's the suite I have and I'm unable to shell out the big bucks to upgrade.)

Well, I think the problem with that is that the hit test will also report a "hit" when you're on things like control points outside of the fill region. Now you could say "well then check the hit type and don't report a hit if it's over a control point" but then you're just in trouble because you might be over an internal control point.
So I don't think it can reliably be used for that.
I guess you might be able to make it work by manually making sure no control points are visible, and that fill is on, and then use the hit test lib. I'll look into it, but my gut feeling is that this is going to have issues. Interesting though. Thanks for the suggestion!
-Kurt

Compound Path without border on inner path

Hi Guys,
I'm trying to create a shape with text that has to be transparent.
I fixed this by creating a compound path but it inherits all the elements of the shape (which is logical) but since the shape has a border it now get an innner border as well.
Is there a way to discard the inner border and just have the outside one?

Or you may:
1) With the type on top of the shape, select the type.
2) In the Transparency panel set the opacity to 0.
3) Select type and shape; group.
4) With the group selected, in Transparency Panel click Knockout Group once or twice, as needed, until the check (tick) mark appears.
The transparency (or opacity) of the type is then infinitely variable by again selecting the type in the Layers Panel and adjusting the opacity setting in the Transparency Panel. I think (though I may be mistaken) that in CS5 it's adjustable in the Appearance Panel.
Peter
Hello, Jacob.

Compound path text & shape mode problem

Hi there,
I'm working with some text that I've outlined and converted to a compound path. Then I'm applying a subtractive shape mode onto, but I'm noticing that it's actually changing the weight of the type. Can someone tell me why this is happening & perhaps suggest how I can retain the weight after applying the subtraction please? Thanks!

I could possibly use a opacity mask, you're right, but I'd still like to know what the reasoning is behind the change in weight is when I outline text -> convert to a compound path -> subtraction shape mode. Strange thing is, is that it's happened to one set of letters & not another set of the same font done in I think the same way
Thanks rcraiqhead however for the suggestion.

The selected objects cannot be joined as they are invalid objects,( Compound paths, closed paths, Text Objects, Graphs, Live Paint group). You can use Join command to connect two or more paths, paths in groups; ot to close an open path.

Hi I was trying to join two Ractangle Tool objects but getting this type of Error in illustrator cs6 :-
The selected objects cannot be joined as they are invalid objects,( Compound paths, closed paths, Text Objects, Graphs, Live Paint group).
You can use Join command to connect two or more paths, paths in groups; ot to close an open path.
Please assist me asap.

Yes, I know this is an old post, but I’m trying to clean them up. Did you solve this problem, if so what was the solution?
This sound like a firewall issue. I would start by disabling the firewall and seeing if you can connect. If this works then you know where the problem is,
Garth Jones | My blogs: Enhansoft and
Old Blog site | Twitter:
@GarthMJ

Help with Compound Paths

Hello,
I would like to know how to accomplsih the following. I can't get it to work, assuming it is possible.
Background: I have type (in outline form) on top of a solid vector rectangle (rectangle A). Rectangle A is on top of a background color. I want the type to drop out to the background color. I know how to do this by a) selecting both the type and rectangle A and b) making a compound path. Works. No problem.
But, what I really want to accomplish is the following: I want the type to drop out to the background color when it is placed on top of TWO separate objects. Here is the order of objects, starting at the bottom: 1) background color, 2) rectangle A, 3) square B, 4) outline type (fits entirely within the area of the square). I want to be able to cause the type to "drill" through both square B and rectangle A so that the color of the type is the background color. Assuming this is possible, how do I do it? Thanks for some help. Dale

Sorry, no, I mean for output... In AI or PDF files this seems to work great but anything dealing with transparency gets flatteded when you pull an eps file into a layout program like Quark or InDesign and consequently, the knockout or transaprency mask turns white regardless of what background it is placed on...
I know that in Indesign, this shouldn't be an issue since you can just use the Illustrator format but say you work in a place (like I do) where for reasons dealing with output and central storage that are beyond your link in the chain and thus out of your control, you have to save as EPS still - is there any way that you know of right off, to get this to work without the knockout going to white?
I ask only because it seems like there should be a way to prevent this from happening since there are no transitions and this isn't dealing with a degree of transparency but a compleet knockout...
If this is something that to the best of your knowledge should work, I don't expect you to troubleshoot my problem and I'll look into the settings I'm playing with on my own.
As always, thanks for your help either way though!

Compound Path Type Container

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