Dealing with OPEN PATHS in Illustrator in 2 steps
Couple little things you need to know about when creating a vector image, especially if you are going to sell it on stock websites
Here are some tips and tricks for making the best out of your work. Mostly time savers.
OPEN PATHS: If you are dealing with open paths, you are in trouble, so try this plug-in from Graffix to FIND THEM FIRST without hassle.
To install this plugin, just drop the plugin in your Adobe Illustrator Plug-ins folder. It works with Adobe Illustrator CS – CS2 and CS3….
What does this plugin do… It actually finds all guides, paths, open paths, closed paths, filled paths, unfilled paths, stroked paths, unstroked paths, dashed paths, undashed paths, compound paths, groups, live object groups, gradient meshes, envelopes, symbols, embedded raster art, and placed art.
It will appear under Select / Object menu.
So after clicking on select open paths, your open paths are selected, now how are we going to close all these paths, here another plug-in to CLOSE THESE PATHS.
This time just drop the plug in in Illustrator scripts folder, it will appear in File/ Scripts menu, and click. All your paths are closed in 2 steps. What a time saver.
Well if you have only couple paths to close just click on the open path and press CTRL + J to join them, personally I never use this.
Maddy 3:41 pm on October 10, 2007 Permalink
Thank you very much for this info, i was dealing myself with this problem for almost a year…i didn’t know that the answer was so easy…Thank you again!
Marie 11:32 pm on April 16, 2008 Permalink
Thank you so much for the links to the plug-ins. I’ve recently started uploading my illustrations to sell as stock and I had a few rejected because of open paths. Thanks for the help.
Marie
boojoo 9:14 am on April 17, 2008 Permalink
no problem
hope your stuff get approved soon and good luck on sales.
Anonymous 6:28 am on April 18, 2008 Permalink
you are great
thanks
dexonavite 11:21 am on April 28, 2008 Permalink
nice!
now i download it and try to use!
boojoo 12:35 am on May 8, 2008 Permalink
YOU all welcome
Anne 6:24 am on May 13, 2008 Permalink
Thank you so much! It’s a life saver!
Prem 2:53 pm on May 17, 2008 Permalink
select the open paths and press ctrl+J it will close the open paths… have fun!!!!!
Jon 11:57 am on May 28, 2008 Permalink
The close path plugin is pure bliss! Why is this not already part of illustrator?
Thanks a million.
boojoo 12:48 am on May 29, 2008 Permalink
there is so many plugins out there that could be a part of illustrator but usually they are for sale. Not sure why,
they may include this in CS4 maybe..
spondicious 9:46 pm on July 7, 2008 Permalink
I agree that it should be a part of Illustrator already. When I was a CorelDraw user I liked that I could have my object auto close if I drew the end close enough to the starting point. I was getting really miffed having to find all the open paths to be able to close them.
I did find a plug in that found the open paths first which helped identify where I had work to do but then I had to close them one by one or use a trick to close the paths. The I cam across this page and the next plug in I found finished the job for me
Thanks a lot
Pete 10:24 pm on August 13, 2008 Permalink
Terrific shortcut – saves hours of work, many thanks!
aeli 7:08 pm on September 25, 2008 Permalink
Thanks a million! This saved me hours and hours !!!
Todd 1:54 am on January 16, 2009 Permalink
Thank you so much, this is a lifesaver for my stock vector work.
Burcu 1:57 am on January 16, 2009 Permalink
YOU WELCOME GUYS!!
Hakan 11:40 am on January 21, 2009 Permalink
i kiss you bro:)
araraadt 7:39 pm on February 26, 2009 Permalink
thanks a lot!
araraadt 8:25 am on February 27, 2009 Permalink
sorry, but with Illustrator CS4 this doesn’t work
Burcu 5:07 pm on February 27, 2009 Permalink
the plugins probably are only for CS TO CS3 doesnt cover CS4
Nemanja 8:55 pm on March 29, 2009 Permalink
Thank You very much…
Chetan Jivani 6:40 pm on March 31, 2009 Permalink
I tried installing the plug-in as directed “drag and drop it into the illustrator plug-ins folder”, but on initiating illustrator CS & CS3, i could not find the options made available by the plug-in under the select/object menu item. Can someone tell me what I am doing wrong?
Burcu 7:10 pm on March 31, 2009 Permalink
maybe you have not placed it in the correct folder
it may be under C:/ Program Files / Adobe / Illustrator / Plugins/
depends on where YOU SET UP YOUR ILLUSTRATOR PROGRAM
just get inthe program folders and find Plugin folder and drop the plugin inside this folder
then open illustrator and it appears under Select / Object menu..
Hope that helps
Rebecca Eng 12:47 pm on April 4, 2009 Permalink
I have CS3 on mac. i also put the plugin straight into the plugins folder and no additional options are appearing under select / object..?
thanks.
Burcu 5:25 pm on April 4, 2009 Permalink
hmm..maybe does not with MAC? Im not sure sweety.
need to reopen the the program, it appears there usually if its in the correct folder but never tried with MAC so not sure about that.
Mac Parsons 5:20 pm on June 7, 2009 Permalink
I have never understood WHY Adobe never incorporated such a basic operation in Illustrator … one would THINK after acquiring Macromedia a few years back the best attributes of FreeHand would make it into Illustrator. Guess not.
Bethro 6:47 pm on July 17, 2009 Permalink
I notice a couple of people have the same problem I had getting the SelectMenu plug-in to show up. Here’s how I figured it out:
I went back over the instructions text that is in the downloaded plug-in folder (read me.txt) – it says you can go back to the Graffix web site for plug-in updates. Turns out the plug-in download link provided on this page is only for CS and CS2. I went to Rick Johnson’s web site, found the plug-in for CS3, downloaded it, opened my Plug-ins folder, deleted the old plug-in and put in the new CS3 plug-in, restarted Illustrator CS3 and I now see the options for selecting.
In a nutshell, make sure you have the correct plug-in for your software version and computer type – Mac or PC. I hope this helps.
AridOcean 9:14 am on August 14, 2009 Permalink
Since the plugin is not available for Illustrator CS4 under Windows I wrote my own script for extended selections.
It offers almost the same functionality as the Graffix plugin and adds some more options, including the ability to close any number of open paths with one click.
Since it is a script and not a plugin it should run under future Illustrator versions as well.
The script is free.
You can download it from my site:
http://maps.aridocean.com/scripts_en.php
Cyan 12:28 pm on December 17, 2009 Permalink
@AridOcean
Many many thanks!
Never knew you can extend Illustrator with js scripts.
helios 10:24 am on January 4, 2010 Permalink
thank you !thank you! i try to fix for a couple days! thank you again!
Anonymous 10:39 am on November 15, 2011 Permalink
hey! thanks for posting this. One short question though: does it work in cs4, because i can’t seem to find it.
MUJKA CHIC 10:55 am on November 15, 2011 Permalink
use this
it works with CS5..but it is for CS4
http://maps.aridocean.com/scripts_en.php
Madambond 4:34 pm on November 17, 2011 Permalink
What do I do with the php for CS4/5? do i save it somewhere or???
MUJKA CHIC 7:24 pm on November 17, 2011 Permalink
php is the webpage’s format, its like HTML, on that address, there is a program you need to download and follow the instructions
karyn 3:02 am on May 17, 2012 Permalink
You are my hero. Thank you. I had to use CS3 to make this work, but that is fine by me, it worked!
Max 3:34 am on June 11, 2012 Permalink
Thank you very much, works great