Adobe Illustrator CS5 One-on-One

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PATHFINDER OPERATIONS

PRIMITIVES, as you learned in Lesson 2, are the building

blocks of all illustrations, but sometimes such simple objects can’t

accurately represent your work. The alternative—drawing com-

plex shapes by hand with the pen tool—can be tedious and time-

consuming. Fortunately, Illustrator provides a shortcut: pathfi nder

operations. Pathfi nders allow you to quickly combine simple objects

to create more complex ones, as shown in Figure 6-1. A line plus an

ellipse is a musical note. Two circles next to each other and a tri-

angle below become a valentine. A circle minus a smaller, offset

circle becomes a crescent moon. A door, some drywall, and a

couple of windows—not to mention some electrical, plumbing,

heating, AC, roofi ng, and a really big loan—make a

house. These are all pathfi nder operations (well, except

for the house), and they’re amazing timesavers, one

and all. To get a sense of how they work, keep reading.

Compound Paths versus

Compound Shapes

The pathfi nder joins shapes in a few ways, each with

their own level of permanence. By default, the path-

fi nder will simply perform the operation and perma-

nently alter the target path; this change is irrevocable,

short of an undo command. A compound path is two or more sub-

paths that merge to form a single path—hence it appears as a single

object in the Layers panel. You can move one subpath independently

of another, but intersecting regions are always transparent holes

(also called the exclusion mode, which I explain further later in

this lesson). Compound shapes are the most fl exible. A compound

shape is composed of two or more paths as well, but you can see

individual paths in the Layers panel, and even set each to a differ-

Figure 6-1 .

ABOUT THIS LESSON

you’ve downloaded the lesson fi les from

www.oreilly.com/go/Deke-IllustratorCS5,

as directed in Step 2 on page xiv of the

Preface. This should result in a folder called

Lesson Files-AIcs5 1on1 on your desktop.

We’ll be working with the fi les inside the

Lesson 06 subfolder.

Pathfi nder operations are simple operations, but used wisely, they

can produce powerful results. In this lesson, you’ll learn how to:

• Navigate the interface of the Pathfi nder panel, and

learn its fundamentals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 181

• Add and subtract overlapping shapes using

Pathfi nder operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 185

• Divide shapes using the Pathfi nder function . . . . page 188

• Use the Crop, Exclude, and Intersect functions

to create complex shapes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 193

Video Lesson 6: Shape Builder and Pathfinder

Creating complex paths is often just a matter of combin-

ing the right basic shapes. I’ll show you how to use the

new Shape Builder tool and the classic and more powerful

Pathfi nder operations to do this, exploiting the fact that

the world around us can often be broken down into (and

built up with) simple shapes like ellipses and rectangles.

To build shapes and fi nd paths visit www.oreilly.com/go/

deke-IllustratorCS5. Click the Watch button to view the

lesson online or the Download button to save it to your

computer. During the video, you’ll learn these shortcuts:

Operation Windows shortcut Macintosh shortcut

Select the Shape Builder tool Shift+M Shift-M

Subtract shapes from your path Alt-drag with Shape Builder Option-drag with Shape Builder

Display the Pathfi nder panel Ctrl+Shift+F9 -Shift-F9

Apply Shape modes dynamically Alt-click the panel icon Option-click the panel icon

Display the Attributes panel

Ctrl-F11 -F11

Select the refl ect tool Press the O key Press the O key

Select the white arrow tool Press the A key Press the A key

Repeat the last Pathfi nder operation Ctrl+4 -4

Display the Gradients panel Ctrl+F9 -F9

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Lesson 6: Pathfi nder Operations