“Using the Pathfinder Tool Palette”
- To display the Pathfinder tool palette, navigate to Winow>Pathfinder.
- There are two types of tools within the Pathfinder tool palette. For now, we will focus on Shape Modes rather than Pathfinder effects. You will notice several different buttons in the tool palette… an outline of each is shown below. The image to the right is a starting image. The images below correspond to the given Shape Mode.
Shape Modes: Shape modes allow you to control the interaction between or among compound shapes.
- “Add to shape area” – Adds the area of the shape to the underlying shape geometry. (Basically adds the two shapes together.) Select both shapes, click the add shape area button, and the two shapes will boolean together to form one shape. The shape on the bottom will inherit the properties (color, lineweight) from the shape on top.
- “Subtract from shape area” – Subtracts the shape in front from the shape behind. Select both shapes, making sure the shape you want to subtract is on top, then click the “Subtract from shape area” button from the pathfinder tool palette.
- “Intersect shape areas” – Creates a new shape from the intersection of the two previous shapes. Select both shapes, click the “Intersect shape areas” button.
- “Exclude overlapping shape areas” – This tool subtracts the area where two shapes overlap. Select both shapes and click the “exclude overlapping shape areas button.
Download .pdf of Illustrator Tutorial 3.1
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