Star shape expand not working in 2025 update
Illustrator 29 (2025 update) on Mac - The live shapes are great, and I was able to create a cog, but I can't expand the shape like in the previous versions, and the corners stay "live." In properties panel, I click on "Expand Shape" but the shape stays editable as if it's still "live" - see screenshots attached.
Lourens
shared this idea
-
Lourens
commented
Thanks Egor for the reply.
I see your steps and they do work.
It's just that the extra step was never necessary. Expanding the shape meant "expanding" or "baked" or "flattened." So to me, this is a bug. Also, when I did go to "Object > Expand...," no dialogue box appeared either.Otherwise, thanks for the solution. I do hope that there can be a quicker solution in future updates.
Have a great day.
-
Lourens, this is interesting.
I was able to reproduce what you see, and this is what’s happening.
When a star gets expanded, the inner points of it have handles, even though the segments are straight (take a look at the screenshot attached).
Since Illustrator does not STORE the data on corners, but RECOGNZES them in any given path, this combination of handles FORCES it to see original corners you made when modifying a live star. So Ai converts the live star into a just path in a CONSISTENT manner (which is fair!)But now to make it show corners widgets for the actual corners, you can remove the handles (exactly what you did manually).
There is a faster way to do it!
Call Object > Path > Simplify, and click the 'cog' button, to open advanced settings.
Enable 'Convert to Straight Lines' option and reduce the threshold to zero (just like the second screenshot shows).
This will force Ai to remove all the handles without removing any points.
Press OK and there you have it — all corner widgets are there for all the points.Does it work for you?
