: Minus Front Not Working Illustrator I'm trying to cut text out of an object that I drew using the pen tool. But when I select them both and click Minus Front (yes i have created outlines

@Caterina889

There's really no way of telling why it's not currently working. It should work with any text which has been converted to outlines. However, it's not impossible that some compounding or stacking is causing issues. You can try a few additional steps which may resolve some construction issues.


Select the text
Type > Create Outlines
Object > Ungroup (do this as many times as you can, until it's no longer available)
Object > Compound Path > Make


Now select the text and the shape and use Pathfinder.



This makes the separate shapes of the characters into one shape, which will then subtract from the underlying shape as a single unit.

Vote Up Vote Down

@Becky351

I couldnt find a direct solution but I just created offset paths of the objects. Thanks for all the help though :DD
Here is the end result

Vote Up Vote Down

@Lengel450

After you created outlines to that font, the letters are then put in a group and minus front doesn't work well with groups.

Try to ungroup the letters, select all and try again.

If this doesn't work, try with each letter individually.

PS:

This is due to the fact that AI expects you to choose two layers when using Minus Front/Back and this is done with the help of layer/object hierarchy. When you have multiple objects selected, AI thinks in pairs and doesn't know to which pair of objects to apply the function, the first, middle...the last? So in the end you might end up with strange results like applying the function to each pair of two, one after another until the last one.

Also, you need to be aware of the fact that by taking the first letter and background and then hit minus front, AI will often bring the resulted background in front of the other letters and it appears as if they are erased when they are actually behind that background. Send the background to back and continue till the desired result.

Vote Up Vote Down