: How to create a shape, in a form of two basic shapes partially substracted? When I have a circle shape and now I substract from it a little square in the middle, what I get is a shape

@Berumen635

How to make it a real substracted path, so when I combine this shape with others, the substraction path doesn't affect them?


You should be merging the shapes/paths into 1 shape object prior to combining the shape with other shapes.



at first I make a simple substraction on a square
then I add another shape...
and finally try to merge this two into one shape.



You're mistaken. At step 1, you make a subtraction. You have 2 shapes. At step 2, you add another shape (based on your sample image, it is below the shapes that comprise the "C"). You now have 3 shapes, which means step 3 is not executing the way you expect.

In this example, you have 1 subtractive shape (a horizontal), and 2 additive shapes below it (a square, and a vertical rectangle). Since the subtractive shape is subtracting from all the shapes below it, it affects your square and vertical rectangle.

You can change 3 things to fix this:


Merge the 2 shapes in step 1 before you add another shape.
Don't merge the 2 shapes from step 1, but make sure the new shape is at the top of the pile
Create all your shapes, but selectively merge the shapes you want to combine (In other words, even though you have 3 shapes on your layer, you can direct-select 2 of them and merge just those 2). This will have the same effect as option 1.

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@Murray976

Draw your first shape. Then with that path highlighted, select "Subtract Front Shape" on the control bar and draw your second path.

You'll end up with 1 shape comprised of 2 paths and a hole in the larger shape.



Additional information after your edit

Although the above may seem "obvious" to you based on your comment below, the answer applies even after you've edited your question and added additional imformation.

The key to what you are doing are the Path interaction options.

Here's an additional animation to show you that it's really a matter of choosing the right interaction method before you draw a shape, that's all.



The Path Interaction options are "sticky". They stick tot he shape you draw immediately after choosing an option, and they will stick to future shapes until you change the options. So, to this end, you often need to change the interaction method as you put down new shapes.

If you set the interaction options to "Subtract Front Shape" then it stays on Subtract Front Shape and everything you draw will be subtracted. By altering the interaction options while you create shapes you can use the shape tools to create just about any random configuration of positive and negative areas, all within one shape or vector layer.

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