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For a long time it’s been discussed on the forums devoted to the work of Adobe Illustrator how to close paths quickly. The designers often face with the problem that the clients do not except the vector works because of the open paths. Search and closing of paths manually is a tiresome work. Today I will tell you how to close paths with standard Adobe Illustrator’s means and about other ways of solving this problem with scripts and plug-ins.
It appears, the answer to the question how to close the paths is right in front of us. You can close the paths with the Knife Tool. Let’s take as an example a 3d object after applying the Expand Appearance command to it. This 3d object is a group of regular vector objects. To check out information about open paths open the Document Info Panel (Window > Document Info) and choose the Objects in the panel menu.
As we can see, the group consists of 930 open paths. To close them, take the Knife Tool and draw a circle around the entire objects.
As a result, all the 930 paths have been closed.
I want to pay your attention, if you need to close only one path and there are the objects that overlap it, it must be selected. If the path is not selected, the path closing with the Knife Tool will lead to cutting of the neighbor paths along the trajectory of the movement of the tool.
There are also free scripts for closing of paths.
You can download these scripts here: Download Scripts
You need to place the scripts into the following folder:
For Windows C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Illustrator CS5\Presets\en_GB\Scripts
For Mac/ Applications / Adobe\Adobe Illustrator CS5\Presets\en_GB\Scripts
Now the names of the scripts will appear on the File menu.
The Close All Paths script closes all open paths in the current document. To do so, go to the File > Scripts > Close All Paths
The Close Selected Paths script closes only selected path(s). To do so, go to the File > Scripts > Close Selected Paths
You can find and select open paths with the SelectMenu plug-in.
You can download this plug-in here: Graffix
Install the SelectMenu into the folder:
For Windows C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Illustrator CS5\Plug-ins
For Mac/ Applications / Adobe\Adobe Illustrator CS5\Plug-ins
To select open paths go to the Select > Object > Open Paths
Some of the Adobe Illustrator developers suggest selecting and closing of paths with their program products. For example, if you have the VectorScribe plugin installed, you can close paths using the PathScribe Tool.
And if you use the DrawScribe plugin, the InkScribe Tool performs the same action
These tools close paths taking into consideration the Endpoint Handles.
I hope you found some useful information in this article. Don’t forget to leave feedback and comments and make sure you subscribe to us!
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