Expanding an Inside / Outside stroke creates barely open paths
- Create a rectangle
- Apply a thick stroke to it and change its alignment to Inside or Outside
- Expand Appearance for the shape
- Deselect the shape
- Grab Direct selection and carefully move the corner points at the top right, for both paths
It turns out Illustrator doesn’t keep these tidy! One is cut open, another has a doubled point! It leads to a problems later, when we try, e.g. to make corners rounded, or apply effects.
A current workaround is to apply Add (as Pathfinder operation or an effect) to the stroke, separately form the fill... and it’s taxing for memory, since we have to remember about hundreds of other peculiarities Ai has.
AdminEgor Chistyakov
(Admin, Adobe Illustrator)
shared this idea
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ajabon grinsmith commented
I have posted about the inner paths being open paths in “Outline Stroke”.
It seems to be due to almost the same cause, but this one does not occur with objects created with the shape tools, such as rectangle and oval. -
Tried versions: 27.9.6 and 29.5.1 macOS 14.7.5
Reproduction Procedure:
1. Create a close path in a new document with the Pen tool.
2. Change the position of the Stroke (Align to inside/outside).
3. Execute the menu command “Outline Stroke”
4. The inside of the created compound path becomes an open path.Ideal Results
All “Outline Stroke” results should be close paths.The attached figure shows the path at the starting point slightly moved after “Outline Stroke” was executed for confirmation.
<にほんご>
線の位置をカスタマイズして「線のアウトライン」でオープンパスが作成される
試したバージョン： 27.9.6 と 29.5.1 macOS 14.7.5
再現手順：
1. 新規ドキュメントにペンツールでクローズパスを作成．
2. 線の位置を変更（内側/外側に揃える）
3. メニューコマンド「パスのアウトライン」を実行
4. 作成された複合パスの内側がオープンパスになってしまう理想の結果
“パスのアウトライン”の実行結果はすべてクローズパスであること．添付図は“パスのアウトライン”実行後に，確認のため始点のパスを少し動かしてみた状態．
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Another workaround would be checking the artwork with VectroFirstAid plugin panel. It detects these cuts and heals them, in bulk. Plus we can schedule it to make regular checks...
But we all understand this should not happen in the first place. Somebody just did s sloppy job with these paths. -
There is an option in Pathfinder palette — Remove redundant points. It helps a bit.
But AI keeps switching it off from time to time (as it also does for snapping for Tabs).
You can vote for fixing this here:
https://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/601447-illustrator-bugs/suggestions/32914501--remove-redundant-points-in-pathfinder-options-ke -
Stephen Kelly
commented
Example:
1. Draw a square with a stroke set to the inside or outside (doesn't matter which as long as the stroke isn't centred)
2. Expand the square and instead of the 8 anchor points you would expect the compound shape to have, the expanded square has 10 anchor points.
The top right corners have 2 anchor points each, created directly on top of each other.This happens with ANY shape with corners and a stroke that isn't centred.
You can't see the extra anchor point directly because it is in exactly the same location as the correct anchor point.
To prove there is an extra anchor point, switch to the Direct Selection tool and you'll see that all the corners except the top right corners have a Corner Widget. The top right has no corner widgets because technically there is no corner - there is no path that changes direction because the anchor points are directly on top of each other.
You can also prove there are 2 anchor points instead of 1 by using the Astute Graphics tools. When the corner is selected the Astute info panel shows 2 anchor points selected when it looks on screen like there is just 1 anchor point selected. You can the use Astute tools to remove the extra anchor point and Voila the corner widgets reappear and the shape now has its correct number of anchor points!