Changing Stroke Weight Alters Path

Hello!
At some point over the last couple of days, I did something in Illustrator (probably an accidental key combination) that causes the physical structure of the path to change whenever I alter the thickness of the stroke.
I took a screen capture and uploaded it to YouTube as an example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hAA7YIrVwY. You'll notice, in the video, that as the stroke becomes smaller, the path actually shifts down the artboard.
How do I stop this from happening? OR what is the setting that got changed, so that if it happens again in the future, I can fix it? It's been difficult trying to find an answer, since the keywords are pretty relevant to just about ALL Illustrator questions.
Thanks for your help!

steve fairbairn wrote:
Sounds like that "snap to pixel grid" thing that some bright lad at Adobe thought might be a good idea for CS5.
Actually is a godo idea just takes edutacting users to some degree.
Select the path and uncheck Align to Pixel Grid on the Transform panel. Does the problem go away?

Similar Messages

Keyboard shortcut - hotkey - to change stroke weight

Is there a keyboard shortcut to change stroke weight? Increase and decrease.
If there isn't , then maybe someone could help me to write a script or something else, to make this hotkey.
I found this thread: http://forums.adobe.com/message/1274603#1274603 but the link to script is dead.

The scanario is like this: there are plenty of e.g. circles on the artboard. I want to make all these circles to have one of 3 strokes: 1px green, 3px green and 5px green, semi randomly. If there was a shortcut assigned to those strokes, I could very quickly paint the circles. Click the circle with right hand and press the shortcut with left hand and it makes the circle stroke 1px green, and so on. Much faster than click the circle and then choose the stroke weight. The same could be used for painting fill. Symbolism would be a good alternative if it could place the symbols exactly in specific places, but as I know this tool, it just sprays randomly and then shifting to specific places is not exactly possible (e.g. put all symbols precisely in a row).
[Edit] Ah, it was so long ago that I forgot the original purpose. But now I recall, that the purpose was to draw hair. So I wanted to assign not only stroke weight but also color.

Can't change stroke weight - help?

It seems Illustrator has locked the stroke weight to a minimum of 1pt, which presents a big problem...
How do I unlock it to be able to reduce stroke weight below 1pt?
BTW I'm using CS4.
Any help is much appreciated.
Thanks

Heidi Marie,
One possible cause is a change of general Regional/Language settings for the PC, the crucial part being the decimal mark.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_mark
Illy only understands the mark in her own language so if the opposite mark is implied by the general PC settings, the dropdown list fails to work. You may customze your general PC settings, to use her mark regardless of overall language.

How to stop changing stroke weights when changing the size of an object in CS5 on Windows 7?

I'm not sure what I did to make this happen or how to change it back, but for some reason when I change the size of an object/line it changes the stroke weight as well. (For example, if I drew an ellipse with stroke weight 2 pt, and then increased the size the stroke weight would be 2.856 pt or some such number instead of 2 pt.) Does anyone know how to change this back?
Thanks!

Take a look at the Scale Strokes and effects preference either in the general programme preferences or in the flyout menu of the Transform palette.

CS6: Object Find/Change-Stroke weight?

Hi all,
First time using the find/change Object query in CS6.
I'd like to search for and decrease a specific stroke weight on all frames in my document (in this case they are all graphic frames, but I'm unable to get it to work)
I've tried searching for all frames, text frames, graphic frames, within the Document, but the query is not finding any of the bad strokes. (I watched a Lynda.com tutorial and it looked so easy, but I can't figure out why it isn't searching for them. (none of the objects are locked)
Is there an attribute I need to uncheck in the Find Object Format Options to ensure it only searches of the stroke? Thanks for any input.
Here's an example:

Thank you! That worked.

Maintaining Stroke Weight when changing path to brush stroke

Is there a way or an option I am missing to convert my regular paths to a path stroked with a brush profile,while maintining the proper stroke width?
For instance, I have a regular line with a stroke of 5 and then add a brush profile, which then converts the original stroke to whatever the brush was made at.
Can I change this? I am hoping I am missing something with an option or how I make brushes
Thanks!

dasikins,
When you apply a Brush to a path, the resulting width of the brush will be the basic brush width multiplied by the path Stroke Weight in points.
Presuming you wish to have a final brush width of 5pt and the basic width is 2.5pt, you will need a path with a Stroke Weght of 2pt because 2*2.5 = 5.
I wonder whether this is relevant or nonsense.

How to adjust path stroke weight?

I'm unable to adjust the weight of a path. Here's a 40 sec video (no audio, 1920x1080) that demonstrates I know how to adjust the stroke weight on a path, followed by a demo of it not working when I try to adjust it:
http://stephenbuck.org/adobe/il-point-width/point-width.html
Here's what I do in the video:
First, on a path that allows the change:
Select an elipse.
Increase the stroke weight of the elipse.
Control-Z to undo.
Decrease the stroke weight of the elipse.
The above demonstrates I know how to adjust the path weight (at least I think it does).
Next, on the path that doesn't allow the stroke width to be reduced:
Select path.
Increase stroke weight to demonstrate it increases.
Control-Z to undo.
Decrease the stroke weight to .25 to demonstrate it does not reduce in size.
And that's the problem.
What do I need to do to decrease the weight of the path I am trying to adjust?
Thanks,
Buck

Hi Jacob.
Yes, thank you and I've figured out what has happened. The layers panel included a layer titled "Meridians" and a sublayer titled "<Path>". Each item has an effect applied through the appearance panel, and that is what was causing the problem. I had been meatballing only the <Path> item in the layer panel, which is behind the Meridians layer item. Decreasing <Path> was not noticable because the Meridians layer item was the 5 point weight in front of it... I changed each item to contrasting colors, increased the weight of <Path> to 20pt, and then it was apparent that the Meridian layer effect was the item that needed to be resized.
Somewhere in this process I mistakenly applied the same effect to the Layer and the Path, and that's what caused my little dilemma.
Thanks to you and everyone else who participated in researching this problem. It's solved.
Buck

Can't change the weight of my strokes, color or fill...

I use artioscad wich has a plug-in for illustrator. When I'm working with illustrator i can't change the weight of my strokes, color or fill, in fact i can't do anything, everything is locked. I have tried to unlock the draw but with n o sucessm can anyone help me?? I have to make the illustrations for the boxes I draw and using *.eps file is not my solution.

Hi Megan,
Thanks for the replay.
I have tried many thinks, and tried what you wrote, but nothing. I'm new in this artioscad-illustrator, so probably I'm making something wrong. I just draw in artios and open directly in illustrator using esko plug-in.
I tried again what to told me to trie but with no luck.
I'll pass you a step-by-step what I made after oppening in illustrator:
I'll make my steps for you to undersatnd whats hapening.. because I have tried looking the appearance palette.. and its ok.
First i draw in artios, its a package software design which has a plug-in for illustrator (to open directly artios drawings in illustrator)
Then in illustrator i open it directly, the aspect is like this:
I unlock the chain of the layers and in the appearence palette apears just plug-in object.
I can select an individual path but can't change it. If I make a offset path with 0mm, I can change that path weight but not the original. But if i try to move the offset path or the original path it gives me an error "Can't move the objects. The command was canceled"
I have tried so many things that, realy, I can't remember all. I
have a menu that has more options, but none of them unlock the paths. Every time try to drag an anchor it goes right back to the original position.
The goal is to make something like the next image:
Today I dupplicated my layer and then made a offset 0, now I can change the weight, color and fill my shape. Probably I will find more problens in the way. This was the only solution that worked with me!

How do I auto set stroke weight, stroke colors & fill color?

Hi,
I'd like to make it easier for our 100,000 designers to use AI to make custom products using a laser cutter.
Current Practice
Designers open our AI laser cutting design templates, add their designs using the AI settings our online pricing system can read, then upload their designs to our website for instant pricing, making and shipping.
The Problem
Designers have to manually setup AI with settings that can be read by our online pricing system. If they get these settings wrong, our system can not read their designs. So they are rejected and can not be priced or made. This happens more often that you'd imagine.
The Solution
Designers do not like design rejections. So I'd like to eradicate them by providing our designers with a version of AI that provides the following settings only:
* Set document to RGB
* Stroke weight = 0.01mm
* Stroke colors = RGB 0, 0, 255 and 255, 0, 0
* Fill color = RGB 0, 0, 0
This will mean designers have a very limited number of AI choices, with nothing to distract them or to get wrong. Which will result in less (or zero?) design rejections. And products made faster than before. Rejoice!
Question
How do we program our AI laser cutting design templates so that when they are opened in AI, they auto set AI settings as defined above?
Thanks so much.
Derek

Ponoko wrote:
Your first point - yes, that's what our system does currently. As a result designers get lots of 'how to fix' messages as a result of design rejections. We wish to reduce these rejections and resulting 'how to fix' messages by limiting their choices in AI - because this is where the problems are created.
Ok, yeah gotcha, so customers/designers think they do it right (cough/laugh) upload, then get surprised to find out they didn't by your upload system. That's kind of what I thought. I feel your pain. ;-) I sense you want to reduce this aspect to keep the customers/designers happy and thinking they do nothing but work magic all day right? ;-) So you don't want to lose customers in the midst of frustration of file rejection thinking there files are right and your system is certainly wrong, when in fact it's the opposite. Good luck explaining that to a designer however, right? ;-)
Ponoko wrote:
Your second point - You go on to talk about using a complex "action" we could distribute within the design templates. Although I suspect this is different, the path we're thinking is to include something in the templates that, when imported into AI, sets AI with the color palette we need, line weight we need. Possible?
As Monika hinted at you can't rigidly restrict or control what a user is allowed to do and use in Illustrator. You can try to reduce the parameters by saving the file as a Template.ait file, but even then they can muck about all day until they mess things up again, plus you have no control whatsoever even then as to whether they use fills, the stroke weights, etc. That is why I mentioned various things to manipulate the file once they deem it completed and ready to submit/upload. Basically a method to fix what they messed up or did incorrectly and instead set things as they should be for submission as I previously mentioned. I mentioned you may be able to create a complex Illustrator "action" action.aia that they run to process these requirements. I am not sure if such an action could be accomplished as all inclusive (perhaps though) otherwise you could as stated do it through scripting and a script they run: script.jsx to prepare the requirements, or an actual standalone helper app you create and provide like I mentioned above as well.
I see for CorelDRAW & Inkscape you require SVG, why not change that for Illustrator also so all your 2D app submissions are SVG based? Then manipulate the SVG server side, point out the changes and why and have the customer approve the new modified SVG Preview of the needed changes and move along with the process from there? Make all the requirement changes on the server by manipulating the SVG. You should have access to all of the requirements: RGB color model, stroke weight, stroke colors, fill colors, create font outlines, image tracing? I am just tossing out ideas here, get your programmers busy, tell them to stop playing video games and "make it so". ;-)
But even so, this then begs the question: What are you doing to circumvent the same issues for inept CorelDraw and Inkscape users?
Since, they have the same freedom to do things incorrectly and misaligned with the requirements, just as Illustrator users do.
Regardless though of the approach customers/designers may not like seeing certain things changed even minutely in trivial amounts and thusly be just as upset or up in arms with the changes to their pretty design files that they think were not needed in the first place, how dare you undermine them ;-). Same as seeing the file rejection from your system upon upload. Again I feel your pain. You have your Application/File requirements requirements stated nicely and plainly, it should be pretty easy for most, but sadly I guess not.

Why does my shape change when I change stroke attribute?

Hello,
I am having problems with my vector shapes automaticly changing shape (the position of every point that makes up the shape) when I increase the weight of the stroke or at color of the stroke. I hope that is clear.
For example: I have a Circle, then I change the weight of the stroke by clicking up on the arrows in the stroke dialog box. Every click up or down moves each point in a different direction. By the time I settle upon the weight I want, the shape is no longer a circle, but a abstract ameba shape.
Can anyone lend me some wisdom for what I can do to fix this problem?
Thanks a ton!

You select only part of the path instead of all of the path, that is some anchor points are selected, solid, as opposed to active but not selected outlined.
Option clickon the path withthe direct select tool or click on the center point to select the whole path with the direct selet tool or use the selection tool or drag a marquis with a selection tool to select the path and the anchor points
now you can move it with the arrow keys
oh I see you want to change the stroke weight you need to have the cursor active in the Stroke panels weight field in order for the weights to change so first select the path then click in the weight field of the panel.

Change Stoke Weight PER Anchor Point

I was wondering if in a future release of Illustrator if it would be possible to be able to have the option to change the weight (or thickness) on an anchor point by anchor point basis. Picture a straight segment (line) made up of two anchor points (drawn with the pen tool).
I would like the ability to click on the first anchor point and change the weight (stroke / thickness) of that anchor point to 1 pt then click on the second anchor point and change it's stoke to 5 pts. I would like the line segment to be 1 pt thin at the beginning and for it to gradually get thicker until it reaches a 5 pt thickness at the second anchor point.
In addition to that I would like to be able to do this with all of the Illustrator drawing tools, for example: Using the square tool, to be able to start the whole square at 1 pt stoke thickness... but then be able to select one of it's corner anchor points and change that one point to 3 pt thickness and have the attached segments get progressively thinner going down to the other 1 pt anchor points.
I hope I've explained that well enough. If you need examples please let me know.
Cindy Colby
[email protected]

Cindy,
That request comes up here all the time. It really isn't workable. You'll soon find that you don't want the thickness settings to be locked to the positions of anchorpoints, because you're not going to want the
thicknesses to be locked to the
shape of the spine path.
So on-object variable thickness control would end up requiring yet another set of handles along the path, just for controlling thickness. I serously question the real-world value of this.
Look, you want to be able to vary the thickness of a stroke. You can already do that with an Art Brush. Example:
1. Rectangle Tool. Draw a square.
2. Rotate Tool. Rotate it 45 degrees.
3. Remove Anchorpoint Tool. Click the left anchorpoint to remove it.
4. Drag the resulting triangle to the Brushes Palette. Define an Artbrush.
Now draw a path of any shape. Apply the Brush. You now have a "stroke" that increases thickness along the path.
But you want it lighter or heavier weight overall. Adjust the stroke weight in the Stroke dialog.
You want it going in the opposite direction. Change the direction of the path, change the direction of the Brush, change the direction of the Brush as it is applied to just that path (doubleClick its listing in the Appearance Palette), or make a pair of Brushes from the beginning (as I often do).
But you said you want the start of the path to be 1 pt, not zero, and then to be 5 pt. at the end. Fine. Instead of a triangle, create your ArtBrush from a trapezoid instead of a triangle.
Now... apply that trapezoid Brush to an ess curve. Works fine. Starts at 1 pt.; increases weigth to 5 pt. at the other end. But now you decide you want it to start at 5 pt., shrink to 1 pt. at the middle of the ess, then increase to 5 pt. toward the end.
Now, you could easily build a Brush that does that, too, but consider this:
So you use one of the methods explained above to make a "reverse" of the trapezoid Brush. You cut the ess path at the middle, where you want the thin to occur, and reverse the direction of one half.
Now you encounter one of the key problems with all these half-baked suggestions for on-object stroke weight adjustment handles: The place where the "thin" changes directions has a kink in it. Do you want that kink? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. How will you control the "smoothness" of the change of direction of the stroke weight curve? Your tidy interface is going to have to get more complicated. It's going to have to include some kind of "direction handles" at each of the weight-change key points.
Now I ask you: What feature in AI already gives you that control? Answer: ArtBrushes.
Now consider the real-world practicality of all this. What do you want to use this for? Drawing calligraphy-like flourishes? You try that with any more than one or two intermediate thickness keys along a given curve, and you'll find the smoothness of the result is quite difficult to control. An ArtBrush thoughtfully-built from a simple geometric primitive is easier to control.
Or do you want to use it to give your cartoon line drawings more of a hand-drawn look that is more convincing than the almost always unsatisfying results of Calligraphic Brushes? Do you really want to adjust handles on each and every path you draw in a cartoon? Try some of my simple geometric ArtBrushes and see if you
really need more than two or three variants to get the look that you want.
The idea sounds great on the surface, but if you give careful thought to the actual implementation, you'll find it isn't as workable as you first think. And for the vast majority of
practical uses, simple ArtBrushes already facilitate it.
Some here have even mocked-up elaborate fake "interfaces" for a separate window in which to tediously describe a "profile" of a varying stroke that would then later be added to paths; all the while failing to realize that is essentially what ArtBrushes
already are--except you don't need a separate dialog to do it; you can do it right there on the artboard, and then update the ArtBrush.
I fully expect that if Adobe spent development time in pursuit of a separate dedicated interface and feature set for this, the end result would be as awkward to actually use as the on-path handles for pathType objects, and as tedious and time-wasteful as all the tweaks and twiddles in LiveTrace.
All that's really needed is a few thoughtful improvements to the already-existing Brushes feature set. How about an "isolation mode" (or edit window) for Brushes, instead of having to drag an existing Brush onto the artboard, edit it, and then drag it back to update it? Then do some work on improving the mitering of Brushes where they encounter corners and sharp bends in the spine path.
The usefulness of other Brushes (particularly Pattern Brushes) would benefit hugely from just a few similarly modest improvements, too.
JET

Maintaining stroke weight proportionally in scales

when i give a path a stroke weight and then scale and then scale it down, the stroke weight remains in the same. how can i get the stroke weight to scale proportionally too.
example: when I make a logo, I assign a stroke of 2 pts to the graphic. then I scale it down to a business card size and the stroke weight remains 2 pts which is too much for a tiny graphic. also when I scale it up, the stroke weight proportionally appears to be too thin... please help

You can also make that change in the flyout menu in the Transform Panel.
Peter

How to make this image compatible as a laser cut file by changing stroke colour?

My final aim with this image is to make it compatible as a laser cut raster engrave design, so the laser cutter will fill the black areas or white (either would be fine). If this is not possible then even as a laser cut outline would be suitable
This is how the image will look when in Illustrator. however when I use the preview screen (ctrl+y) it creates an outline. This is how the laser cutter will read the image which is why it is very important the preview image is is what i would expect the final outcome to be.
As a raster the laser cutter requires the stroke line to be blue r:0 g:0 B:255. Currently I cannot edit the colour, yet I can change the stroke weight. Also how I would I fill the engraved areas as a stroke? At the moment when I try converting the stroke to blue it turns grey.
I am also unsure as to how I would make this feasible even to be cut out when I cannot change the stroke colour to red. This is required for laser cut designs as the laser cutter reads red lines to be cut.
I can usually change stroke colours easily so I assume this is due to the fact that I have brought this file through from Photoshop so it is not yet fullu editable. I have used the live trace and live paint function in illustrator so far.
Any help would be appreciated

You need to expand the artwork and convert the strokes to genuine outlines to in turn be able to apply anotehr thin stroke to them again...
Mylenium

Is it possible to change the colour of Path segments/lijnes in PS CC?

Hi all,
Is it possible to change the colour of path segments/strokes in PS CC in order to make them more
visible when used in eg B&W pictures??
Thanks in advance!
[Moving to Photoshop forum... JTS]

No..
It is not possible in scripts..
In scripts u cannot use colors..
In smartforms u can do that..
reward if it helps u..
sai ramesh

Need some help in finding a specific stroke weight...

My preflight program is flagging illustrations with less than a .2 stroke weight and finding these instances can be a reall bugger. The preflight will give the >.2 value so I tried going back to the illustration and creating a line with the offending pt value and selecting same stroke weight but it won't select them. Once I have manually found the small stroke weight I've compared the two strokes for any differences but it won't select even when the color is the same and stroke=default appearance. Once I select the original line and do the select same stroke than it finds the other instances just fine. Anyone know whats going on? I'm using Illustration CS4 and the files are all .ai.
Any help would be much appreciated!

For anyone looking at thread I found a quick solution on the forum...
17. Jan 6, 2009 10:26 AM in response to: (Alesclandre)
Re: Thousands of paths take a huge time to treat !
> So what I wanted to do is to force all the paths that were thinner than 0.25 to 0.25. I think I can't do it inside Illustrator. But maybe I'm wrong ? 1. Line Tool: Draw a line. Give it a stroke of .01 pt.
2. Magic Wand Palette: Set Stroke Weight Tolerance to ".24 pt"
3. Magic Wand Tool: Click the line you drew in step 1. Paths with stroke weight of .25 pt or less should be selected. JET

Changing Stroke Weight Alters Path

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for