: Expanding paths and shapes is making strange shapes in the background CS6 When expanding a path or shape I get weird "ghost shapes" in the background i can't select these and they seam to

@Becky351

Hard to be 100% sure without seeing the actual artwork and I don't have access to CS6 any more, but...

This is usually a result of Illustrator trying to expand the fill of the shape, turning it into an image and then using the original shape as a clipping mask for that image. If this is the case then you will have a load of embedded images added to your links palette. You can use the links palette to find and remove these images by selecting them one at a time and clicking the 'go to link' button at the bottom of the palette and then hitting delete...



Alternatively, you can select all of the affected shapes and go to Object > Clipping Mask > Release. This will get all of the images out of the paths so that you can select and delete them.

In theory, you should be able to direct select these images in Outline View, but maybe that functionality wasn't quite right in CS6.

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