Illustrator cs4 Eraser Question..

Randomly while I was working, my eraser tool started to act up. Now every time I try to use erase, the area I "erase" ends up surrounded by a thick, black outline- how can I change this or turn it off? I was using my eraser before and it was working fine, but now it seems to be "outlining" everything I want to erase- any suggestions for a frustrated artist?
Jon

Go to the Appearance Panel make sure New Art Has Basic Appearance is checked.
Make sure your art has no stroke , if it does this is expected behavior.
Double click the Eraser Tool in the Tool Bar and check the settings and options for the Eraser tool.
It would be a great feature to have the ability to have strokes on any number of segment6s of an object but not all of them if theuse desired it.

Similar Messages

Illustrator CS4 compatibility question

Howdy,
First time posting to the Adobe forum(s). I recently took over software purchasing and
have a request for Illustrator CS4.
The End User is asking: "Can you confirm with the rep that Illustrator CS4 is compatible
with documents produced with InDesign and Photoshop versions CS2?"
I've been digging around but can't come up w/ an answer, so I'm turning to the experts :-)
Thanks!
- jim

Wade,
People that can recognized a building on fire from far away, normally live longer. Other people, prefer to be inside of the burning building to know it is on fire. Darwin was right!
Who Am I to contradict John Nack - Principal Product Manager, Adobe Photoshop, and the thousand of users saying that installers are bad. Wade, I think you know more than John Nack - Principal Product Manager, Adobe Photoshop! WOW!
So you think all these people are wrong:
http://forums.adobe.com/message/2338394#2338394
http://forums.adobe.com/message/2556519#2556519
http://forums.adobe.com/message/1269588#1269588
No help from Adobe: http://forums.adobe.com/message/2518421#2518421
Well, there are lot more. But I think you can tell to all that people and a Principal Product Manager that they are wrong.
If I waste my money in Adobe's CS5 with bugs that Adobe will refuse to fix, it's not Jim's concern. It is only yours!
I am just telling Jim to be careful and to TRY CS5 version (because I want to help him)
And stop being infatuate of what I am going to do next. People here, don't care about your whining about what I do or don't do. This is Illustrator Forum, not Hans' Forum.
But thank you for your attention and care for what I do in life!

Illustrator CS4 Workspace Question

Hello,
I was wondering how to keep the windows in the position that I save them in after closing and re-opening Illustrator. I've saved the workspace many times as a custom workspace, but every time I re-open Illustrator, the windows are all stacked on top of one another.
Also, any actions that I save and load are gone the next time that I open Illustrator. This results in my having to reload them.
One more thing. I have an action set that performs these tasks in order:
Select All / Convert Text to Outlines / Save as EPS (to a specified Network Folder) / Close File
This results in an Illustrator error that gives the following string: R6025 -pure virtual function call. Afterward, Illustrator closes.
Any help on these 3 issues would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Luke

I concur with Monika regarding the prefs/workspaces/actions - you may have permissions problems. The same could be true for the networking stuff - you have limited access to the server and AI can#t cope with it...
Mylenium

A few new Illustrator CS4 questions.

Weird, I just can't figure these out.
First, how do you change the document size/orientation when it's already open? This seemed to be a cinch in all other versions of Illustrator, but now... the new Document set-up menu is quite different.
Related, how does one ADD or SUBTRACT art boards from a document? And remove the art board guides when activated?
How does one prevent Illustrator from opening all documents/a new document, in the same window box, and instead in a separate window box?
If these questions seem rudimentary, let me assure you that I might be having a spaz moment with the new CS4 version of Illustrator, but I've been using the program itself for 10+ years. Maybe I'm becoming lazy and/or senile?

"I have a complex file I created in photoshop with many layers, containing
gradients and blends with no background layer, cropped and feathered edges and
100 opacity. I want to use this for a design in Illustrator CS4 but not at 100%
as I want to type over the top and be able to read. If I simply change the
opacity then the background color in illustrator changes the look of the PS
file. I have tried everything I know, including going back to PS and changing it
there, but the same results. What I ultimately want is a lighter version of the
PS file that is not transparent and allows color behind it to affect the over
vibrancy of the PS file. I'm sure there is a way, but since my knowledge is all
self taught I just don't know the answer. Sure could use some help. Thanks
R"

Illustrator CS4 not flattening for PDF 3rd time asking this question

Everytime I save my Illustrator file as an Pdf file so I can upload it to the company I use for printing site, the layers are all off center. My printing company has not changed anything in there system to have this problem happen. I actually saved the to Illustrator CS3 then saved it as a PDF, and it uploaded fine and it was correct. It seem that Illustrator CS4 is not flattening the file correctly. I never had this problem with CS3. I contacted the adobe they have no idea why this is happening, they said it hould not be happening. Has anyone had this problem and how did you solve it?

here is an example, when I upload this image to the printers I loose the white background and eveything on the bottom of the card is pushed up. The same thing happens with the brochure I have. I can't upload that because this site will not allow it.

Newbie Question - Arrows in Illustrator CS4

Hi,
I'm new here and a bit of a newbie to Illustrator CS4 (migrating from CorelDraw X3). I'm trying to add an arrow to a line which was drawn using the line segment tool. I followed the steps in the online help which says to select the object (line segment), then go to Effect > Stylize -> Add Arrowheads. The only option I have in the Stylize menu is "Glowing Edges ..." Is it possible the line segment I drew is not considered an object?
Please help, this is driving me crazy.

Yeah, I know this is a few months old. Just wanted to say thanks for posting the answer, since I just spent about 45 minutes trying to figure this out, going down the same "glowing edges" garden path as the OP. I need one of those "I'm with stupid" t-shirts. At least I was able to find the answer. The Adobe help files of course were no help at all, and Adobe even makes it hard to search the forums (hey, I DON'T CARE about arrowheads in Flash, already), but I did find it. Thanks again.
Edward

Path question in Illustrator CS4

Hi...I am impoorting a bar graph from Microsfot Excel to Illustrator CS4. So far, so good. I can simply cut and paste from the clipboard and Illustrator understands the Excel graph. What I want to do is to convert the graph to grayscle (which I've done), then apply a spot color to just one of the bars in the graph. I'm able to use the direct selection tool to select one of the bars. Each bar appears to be its own path. Then I open up the swatches menu and apply a color. But ALL of the bars in the graph turn that color, as if all of the paths are the same. Is there any way to ungroup a path? I tried the "ungroup" command to no avail. Thanks.

Thanks, Kurt. I figured out how to do it. Actually, I figured out two different ways:
1. Using OBJECT/COMPOUND PATH/RELEASE
and
2. WINDOWS/PATHFINDER/DIVIDE
Both seem to work.

Illustrator CS4 question!

where in the heck can I change the size of my document?! Anyone. Its driving me nuts. Once I create a new doc where can I change it if needed?
thx

Here is a link to the Illustrator CS4 help docs concerning document setup:
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/Illustrator/14.0/WSA3F11634-6132-4959-B4F2-6AAE82FA75B0.html

Illustrator cs4

I teach a graphic arts class grades 9-12. We are currently implementing Illustrator CS4 into our curriculum. I am (with limited success) learning it on the fly. We are using the Adobe Illustrator Classroom In A Book. I am finding that the students need to reset the default settings often in order to stay in sync with the book.Should you have to do this with each start up? Thre has also been cases that it is needed more than once during class time. Please, any info will be appreciated ! Thanks..........

Jacob B.
Thanks for the quick response. Is there anything that can be done to solve this issue ?
One more question : there are a couple of steps in one of the lessons (Lesson 3 Illy Classroom In A Book) that some of the students have encountered the same incorrect results.
1. One step is outlining a stroke , after following the steps explained in the lesson they are unable to get the outline function to work.
2. Another step is creating a star, again after following the steps we get a result that looks more like an asterisk than a star.
3. One more........When using the erasor tool we actually end up drawing instead of erasing??
I apologize. These may seem simple but they are making my life miserable at this point.
Thanks again...........

Illustrator CS4 view doesn't match view of same file in Acrobat

We're seeing a pretty strange problem with Illustrator CS4 (Mac and PC). The problem seems to happen ins CS5 and CS6 as well. We have a complex piece of artwork for a foil blister and we use a paragraph of text that has 3 transforms applied to which effectively step and repeat the paragraph of text in a repeat pattern across the artwork. This setup very precisely as it needs to be 100% accurate for print purposes as several units are printed side by side and the repeat runs across the units. Everything is setup correctly in Illustrator and then we re-save as a PDF with 'Preserve Illustrator Editing Capabilities' on.
We genearally save as a PDF 1.6 but we have tried all the combinations now. The file still looks perfect in Illustrator but when the PDF is opened in Acrobat (any version) the step and repeat (transform) on the paragraph of text is now no longer in alignment on onside of the artwork but still OK on one side. No matter what we do we can't fix this problem andit's recreatable each time. Also it's not file specific as we can build a new file and it will also exhibit the problem. We're only talking about a tiny jump here - <0.2mm but this means the artwork is out of spec. Any help is gratefully received!!!!

Hi Russell
Never a dumb question if it it had pointed us in the right direction. Yes the fonts are all embedded (legally). We tried the Acrobat Preferences but the don't make any difference. If we outline the fonts in Illustrator the problem still happens when we do a save as so it doesn't seem to be a font issue.
regards
Michael

Can you use Adobe Illustrator CS4 Classroom in a book tutorials(on CD rom) without buying the software?

I recently purchased Adobe Illustrator Classroom In a book CS4, and am having trouble getting to the lessons through the CD-rom which came with the book. My question is do I need to purchase the Illustrator CS4 product to use the tutorials/lessons? I would REALLY appreciate some help, it's needed for a college credit for a design major. Thank you!!

There's the trial version that you can download from adoble.com. I think it's good for 30 days. Other than that, doesn't your school have a computer lab?
There's no way to open the files and work with them other than in a copy of Illustrator. You might be able to open them in inkscape (free) or Freehand (no longer available) but then what are you learning? Not Illustrator...
[edit] You should be able to get most of the lessons done in an older version of Illy though, which might be more affordable (if you can find them for sale)

Illustrator CS4 Running Extremely Slow

We are running Illustrator CS4 (version 14.0.0) on a Mac Pro with OS 10.5.8. When we are working on files with a fair to large amount of linked, not embedded, images, the speed of Illustrator is DRAMATICALLY slower. We get the lovely beach ball with just about every move we make - switching tools, locking/unlocking layers, clicking on an element. The beach ball is there for 3 or more seconds with each move - causing the simplest of tasks to take forever. Document size doesn't seem to matter. It happens on a 350 MB file and on a 60 MB file. It does seem like the files it happens to have a fair amount of linked images placed - some have 10 links. some have up to 30 links. Has anyone run into this problem? I haven't found many complaints online, but can't imagine we are the only ones with this problem. I'm anxiously waiting for CS5 in hopes it will solve this problem. Any suggestions?
One more thing - these files that are slow in CS4, run normal in CS3. I don't notice anything being sluggish with them in CS3,

We are having the same problem. We are running Illustrator CS4 (version 14.0.0) on a Mac Pro Quad core, 6GB ram, with OS 10.5.6
We have two machines that seem to be effected and one that isn't, all are the same spec and setup. But we can't seem to narrow down what the problem is.
One work around we have found is to open the file that is sluggish. Let it load then hide the illustrator, kick the network off. then go back to illustrator. It will ask to re-link the images (which are all stored on the network), just click cancel and it will show the red question marks in the links panel. After that is done it goes back to being speedy. If we need to import another pic, just reconnect and disconnect the network as needed. Not ideal but saves having to wait 30 seconds in between each nudge or move.

PDF displays differently from Illustrator CS4 to Acrobat 9.1.x - no idea why

My name is Chris Plessinger. I'm the local IT support for a company that produces promotional products.
Recently, the Art Department came to me with a problem.
They had a graphic that was sent to them by the customer in a PDF file.
The PDF, when opened in Acrobat 9.1, shows an image with another image imposed on the lower left hand corner.
When the PDF is opened in Illustrator CS4, the image is there, but the smaller image that was imposed on the lower left corner isn't there.
In Illustrator, when you press CTRL-Y, you can see the outline of where it would be, but it's clearly not there.
I'm don't know enough about the software to determine why it is showing up in one Adobe product and not displaying in another.
I am uploading the file in question to this post.
I would be very, very appreciative of any feedback on I can get on this issue. I'm not a graphic artist and can't answer the question being posed to me.
Regards,
Christopher

Sweet.
But I have a new question now: how (exactly) did you accomplish this? How did you flatten it?
Thanks for the quick response. I appreciate your taking the time to help.
Thanks,
Chris

MORDY MY TOP 40 ILLUSTRATOR CS 4 QUESTIONS:

MY TOP 40 ILLUSTRATOR CS 4 QUESTIONS:
1) Do print presets retain number of copies now?
2) Also, do sublayers behave normally with respect to locking/hiding?
3) Do swatches stay in list few now?
4) Can we set a default tool to be selected at startup?
5) Is there an auto-save feature
6) Has the link info palette been updated?
7) Can guides be different colors on different layers?
8) Can we change the colors of layers yet?
9) Is overprint preview sticky when toggling back and fourth to artwork view?
10) Can we add a swatch from a library by searching in the find field and hitting enter?
11) When open previously saved documents, does this window zoom to full screen or slightly off-center as before?
12) Can we outline all text without having to first select all text?
13) Does the scroll work for palettes, dialog boxes now?
14) Can we make keyboard increments larger than 18"
15) Can we create shortcuts for palette items?
16) Can we customize where rulers appear on screen, like bottom right?
17) Is there a select whole objects function yet?
18) Can we delete links within the links palette yet?
19) Is there a way to un-embed an already embedded image without relinking?
20) Can we tile open documents now, vertically or horizontally?
21) Can we turn off white overprinting?
22) Are there more right-click options?
23) Are there more objects to select by under Object>Select?
24) Does Find Font no longer change to the type tool automatically?
25) Is there any embed button in the links palette?
26) Is there an "Ignore All" button when asked for missing images?
27) Can swatches be more than 1 spot color?
28) Can center points be disabled by default?
29) Are there more system swatches (black/white/cmyk/rgb)?
30) Has the place command been changed to "Import/Command + I"?
32) Has Export been changed to Command + E?
33) Has Import & Export been placed next to each other in the file menu?
34) Has hide been changed to Command + H?
35) Is there a history palette?
36) Is the control palette customizable?
37) Can we rotate the page view?
38) Can we make larger artboards?
39) Do we have user-defined units of measure?
40) Can we select all unused layers?

Boy, I gotta tell ya, Mordy, that is some seriously strained logic.
To me, it's just the reality. A while back, I made the choice to use Illustrator. I don't use any other vector drawing program. Overall, for the type of work that I do, workflow is more important to me than anything else. If one could look at an app as an island, then yes, I might consider other apps, but that just isn't the case. This was also one of the driving forces behind my adoption of InDesign. Sure, on a feature-by-feature comparison, InDesign and Quark may still compete. But that competition is moot in my opinion, because I don't care nearly as much about individual features as I do about the overall workflow.
Back to Illustrator, from the "big picture" there are too many things that Illustrator can do that none of its competitors can do. Sure, break everything down to one feature here and one feature there, and you have the ability to say the Corel possess one thing here, FreeHand something here, Canvas yet another, etc. But again, at the end of the day, Illustrator has the toolset that affects my workflow. For example, being able to export a validated PDF/X-1a file is more important to me than an Eraser tool that distorts open paths. Being able to bring artwork reliably into Flash is more important to me than a ruler that can be repositioned to the bottom right of a page.
James, it's obvious from the discussions that we have had other years, that you and I do very different types of work. Sure, there's overlap -- but I don't do the kinds of technical drawing that you do, and while a project will come up here or there where I need to worry about how a plotter will interpret vector paths, that isn't the norm. So maybe my logic and your logic are on two trains, on two different tracks, going in two different directions.
To put it in perspective, the issue of not being able to slice paths correctly is somewhat of a nuisance to me. I totally get why such a feature would be important, though. But that issue is one I have to deal with from time to time. Bleed support is something that has been a huge pain over the years, considering how often I define art in Illustrator which I then place into InDesign. I have to slice paths 1 or 2 times a month. I have to place Illustrator art into InDesign several times a day.
At the end of the day, all I'm trying to say is, I know what tool I will be using each day. It will be Illustrator. That's my own decision. If AI has a shortcoming, I have to find a way to deal with it. That's the sad reality of it. I shell out enough cash to buy the Suite because overall, it is a total design solution. No other design company offers the tools that Adobe does in one package. Sure, I could decide to fill my hard drive with tons of other apps, but that's a decision I choose not to make. My work also must be compatible with others, and so using Adobe products, which are considered the standard in the industry, is par for the course. As is the support for accepted standards WITHIN Adobe products (CSS, PDF/X, etc.).
On my computer, I have 3 folders of apps. Apple apps, which are basically the iLife ones and my new fave, Keynote. Microsoft ones--Office of course. And Adobe apps--Master Collection. That's my choice (we all have that right). You can accuse me of being a lemming if you want. I've been called worse. But at the end of the day, for the most part, I am pretty happy with the toolset I've chosen to use.
:) Mordy

PSD Spot Color Channels in Illustrator CS4

Hi all.
Screenprinter here. Trying to migrate my way into CS4. No such
luck so far.
Way back in Illustrator CS2 I used to be able to place a PSD file with Spot Channels,
and have each channel show up as a separate object in Illustrator. This was incredibly
useful, nay, necessary for creating/laying out separations and adding vector work.
From what I've read and tried, this is no longer possible in CS4, which leaves me running two versions,
which is no fun.
I suppose my question is, has anyone come up with a workaround for this, or does the newest
release support this type of operation? From reading the boards, I've found that I'm not nearly
the only person who needs this feature, and so would hope that there is an alternative to
running CS2 still.
Us poor lowly screen printers get dumped on by nearly all Adobe products in terms of usability
(ever shoot the stock reg marks from photoshop?) give us this one feature!

In Illustrator CS2, the individual Spot Channels from Photoshop used to become Opacity masks when imported.
In Illustrator CS4, they are not converted to Opacity masks. Your spot colors are still there - look in the Swatches panel. There is a Spot channels image in the layers panel with 100% Multiply blend mode applied to it.
So it is not correct to say that it is no longer possible to bring spot channels from Photoshop into the Illustrator CS4. See the comparison snapshots below.
Hope this helps.

Illustrator cs4 Eraser Question..

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