New Illustrator 26.0 update - cannot offset path, outline stroke, or expand
Created a stroke to be removed with Shapebuilder Tool, but could not offset path. tried to outline stroke, and also expand. nothing worked to isolate stroke
Dawn Waldner
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Dawn, indeed! Illustrator refuses to expand the stroke in the skyline object. This should be studied and fixed.
However, there are workarounds.
You still can use Object > Flatten Transparency to make it expanded.
The other option is to locate the object in Layers panel and study the object itself — you’ll see that it is a group that has several groups inside that have two duplicates of the same compound path at the bottom level. Once you ungroup all several times and release a compound path (Object > Compound Path > Release), you'll get yet another group, inside of this compound path! Ungroup it, make compound path again (Object > Compound Path > Make) — and finally you will be able to expand the stroke.
See, Illustrator allows to have groups inside of a compound path, and this leads to this and other problems. There is a bug report about it, please vote — https://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/601447-illustrator-desktop-bugs/suggestions/41110042-groups-inside-compound-pathsAnd the third option would be using Offset Path instead of stroke to be expanded and that substracted with the Shape Builder. It still requires a cleaner objects, but saves two steps in the process.
Thanks for reporting the issue!
