Adobe Illustrator CS3 - Manual (Page 240)

ILLUSTRATOR CS3
User Guide
234
Move compound shapes between Illustrator and Photoshop
The shape layers and layer clipping paths (vector masks) in Adobe Photoshop are types of compound shapes. You
can import shape layers and layer clipping paths into Illustrator as compound shapes and continue to manipulate
them. In addition, you can export compound shapes to Photoshop. Keep the following in mind when using
compound shapes with Photoshop:
• Only compound shapes that reside at the top level of the layer hierarchy are exported to Photoshop as shape layers.
• A compound shape painted with a stroke using a join other than round, or with a weight in points that is not an
integer, is rasterized when exported to the PSD file format.
About compound paths
A compound path contains two or more paths that are painted so that holes appear where paths overlap. When you
define objects as a compound path, all objects in the compound path take on the paint and style attributes of the
backmost object in the stacking order.
Compound paths act as grouped objects and appear as <Compound Path> items in the Layers panel. Use the Direct
Selection tool or the Group Selection tool to select part of a compound path. You can manipulate the shape of
individual components of a compound path, but you cannot change appearance attributes, graphic styles, or effects
for individual components, and you cannot manipulate components individually in the Layers panel.
If you want more flexibility in the compound path creation, you can create a compound shape and then expand it.
Cut a hole in an object using a compound path
1 Select the object to use as a hole, and position it so that it overlaps the object to cut. Repeat for any additional
objects you want to use as holes.
2 Select all the objects you want to include in the compound path.
3 Choose Object > Compound Path > Make.
Apply fill rules to compound paths
You can specify whether a compound path is a nonzero winding path or an even-odd path.
Nonzero winding fill rule Uses mathematical equations to determine if a point is outside or inside a shape. Illustrator
uses the nonzero winding rule as the default rule.
Even-odd fill rule Uses mathematical equations to determine if a point is outside or inside a shape. This rule is the
more predictable rule because every other region within an even-odd compound path is a hole, regardless of path
direction. Some applications, such as Adobe Photoshop, use the even-odd rule by default, so compound paths
imported from these applications will use the even-odd rule.
Self-intersecting paths are paths that intersect themselves. You can choose to make these paths either nonzero
winding or even-odd, depending on how you want them to look.