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[00:00:00.20] In this movie, I will show you how to
combine a letter form with a predefined symbol to
[00:00:04.90] create a custom character of type.
[00:00:07.21] Now notice that I still have my path
outlines layer set to the Outline mode and my other
[00:00:11.51] two layers are set to the Preview mode.
[00:00:13.83] And if you were to open this illustration,
you would see exactly the same thing because
[00:00:17.93] Illustrator goes ahead and saves the
preview settings along with the document.
[00:00:22.00] Now in our case, what we want to do is keep
the interior of the O and merge it with the
[00:00:27.39] outside of this Grime symbol.
[00:00:29.72] So that means we need to get
rid of the outside of the O.
[00:00:32.52] And I am going to do that by
zooming in just so I have a closer view.
[00:00:36.39] And then I will press the A key to switch
to my White Arrow tool and I will click on
[00:00:39.96] this anchor point right there and Shift+click
on this one here in order to select a representative
[00:00:45.85] anchor point along the top of both the left
side of the O and the right side of the O.
[00:00:51.07] And then I will press Backspace key or the
Delete key on the Mac in order to get rid of those
points.
[00:00:56.49] That divides the outside and the inside
of the O into two separate path outlines.
[00:01:01.40] So now you can press the Shift and Alt
keys or the Shift and Option keys on a Mac, and
[00:01:06.10] click on the inside of O to deselect it; and
then press the Backspace key or the Delete
[00:01:10.75] key on the Mac, in order to get rid
of that outside path. All right!
[00:01:15.22] Now I am going to zoom in even tighter here.
[00:01:17.42] And we need to move a few anchor points around.
[00:01:19.45] So I will marquee these anchor points right
there and Shift+marquee these ones and then
[00:01:24.95] Shift+click on these final three; but notice
as soon as I try to Shift+click on that endpoint,
[00:01:30.57] I end up selecting this curve segment above
it instead, which means if I start dragging
[00:01:35.04] the anchor points around, I am
going to stretch the selected segment.
[00:01:38.35] I don't want that, so I will press Ctrl+Z
or Command+Z on the Mac, to undo that maneuver.
[00:01:42.89] Now I will press the Shift key and marquee
right around that anchor point like so, in
[00:01:47.93] order to both select the anchor point
and deselect the segment.
[00:01:52.46] Now I can move these anchor
points into the desired positions.
[00:01:55.75] And I'm just matching the location of the
points on my tracing template in the background.
[00:02:01.11] Each time I get an anchor point in position,
I Shift+click on it to deselect it and then
[00:02:05.40] drag the other ones in the position like so,
then I'll Shift+click this guy to deselect
[00:02:10.59] him, drag these two anchor points into
position, Shift+click on each of them to deselect them,
[00:02:16.26] and then drag this guy right there.
[00:02:18.98] Now I am going to leave this anchor point
hanging off, we will come back to it in just a moment.
[00:02:22.87] Now we have got to create a hole in the path
outline that was formerly that Grime symbol
[00:02:28.08] in order to create this channel right
here through the O that appears in dark blue.
[00:02:33.04] So I will go ahead and marquee these
anchor points there and then Shift+click on this
[00:02:36.56] second point to select it as well.
[00:02:37.76] And I will press Backspace key or the Delete
key on the Mac, in order to get rid of those points.
[00:02:43.54] And now I will marquee these anchor points
in order to select them, Make sure just those
[00:02:49.40] anchors points are selected, you don't want
to select part of this guy. And then drag this
[00:02:53.37] endpoint so that it snaps into
alignment with this one.
[00:02:57.48] Now, what we want to do, and it seems like
it should be simple, we just want to go ahead
[00:03:00.98] and join these two endpoints together so
that we are combining the inside edge of the
[00:03:05.00] O with the outside Grime path outline.
[00:03:08.12] So I will go ahead and marquee those two
coincident endpoint--that is, one is directly on top
[00:03:12.47] of the other--and then I will go up to the
Object menu, I will choose Path and I will
[00:03:16.62] choose Join or you can press
Ctrl+J or Command+J on a Mac.
[00:03:20.48] Now the Join command was dramatically enhanced
in Illustrator CS5, but it still is not perfect.
[00:03:27.70] You are going to run into times
where illustrator gripes at you.
[00:03:31.40] And this is a classic example.
[00:03:32.68] As soon as I choose Join, I get this alert
message that starts off, To join, you must
[00:03:37.42] select two open endpoints. Which is not
only not entirely true, but is not accurate to
[00:03:43.09] our situation at all because that's exactly
what we've selected is two open endpoints.
[00:03:47.59] To get a sense of what's gone wrong in our
case, you have to read the very end of last
[00:03:51.31] sentence where it says, if both of them
are grouped, they must be in the same group.
[00:03:56.14] Our problem is that one of our endpoints is
inside of a group and the other one is inside
[00:03:59.70] of a compound path; and as a result,
Illustrator refuses to join them together.
[00:04:04.68] You should not turn on the Don't show again
checkbox, because if you do, and you run into
[00:04:09.42] this problem in the future--which you will--
then instead of getting an alert message,
[00:04:14.73] Illustrator will just ignore you, which
I can tell you is extremely confusing.
[00:04:18.98] So just go ahead and click OK.
[00:04:20.98] And now here's how to solve the problem.
[00:04:23.08] Press the V key in order to switch to the
Black Arrow tool and then click off the path
[00:04:27.76] outlines to deselect them.
[00:04:29.30] Now click on the outside edge
right there in order to select it.
[00:04:33.75] What we want to see is the word Path over
here on the far left side of the Control panel;
[00:04:37.47] instead, we see Compound Path, which is going
to create a problem when we try to join one path
to another.
[00:04:43.35] Our only option is to release the Compound
Path by going up to the Object menu, choosing
[00:04:47.61] Compound Path and choosing Release.
[00:04:49.94] Now you want to make sure by the way that
you are not releasing any holes or creating any problems.
[00:04:54.79] In our case, we are fine.
[00:04:56.59] So go ahead and choose the Release command.
[00:04:58.94] Now we hope to see the word Path on the far
left side of the Control panel and instead
[00:05:02.97] we see Mixed Objects, which means anything;
we could have some paths selected, we could
[00:05:07.78] have a group selected, don't know.
[00:05:10.28] So click off the path outline to deselect
it, click on it again to select it and now I see
Group.
[00:05:16.75] So I release the Compound Path only to be
confronted by a group, which means I now have
[00:05:21.27] to go the Object menu and choose the Ungroup
command or press Ctrl+Shift+G or Command+Shift+G
[00:05:26.17] on a Mac; and now I've got a
path. Excellent!
[00:05:29.67] Now what you want to do is
click on the inside path outline.
[00:05:33.26] And you can see that it is a group over
here on the far-left side of the Control panel.
[00:05:37.10] So go back to the Object menu
and choose the Ungroup command.
[00:05:41.36] And now notice we have got a Compound Path.
[00:05:43.33] Now here's the thing, you don't want to just
release the Compound Path; because if I zoom
[00:05:49.35] out, which I did by pressing Ctrl+0 or Command
+0 on the Mac, notice we've got holes in the
[00:05:55.55] Es and they are currently selected.
[00:05:58.55] So if you were to release those Es as compound
paths, then we would release the holes inside the
Es as well.
[00:06:04.81] Don't want that, so click off the path
outlines to deselect them, then click on the inside
[00:06:09.24] edge of the O, so just it is selected. It
is still a Compound Path, but we can release it with
impunity.
[00:06:15.59] So go up to the Object menu,
choose Compound Path and choose Release.
[00:06:21.09] Now for the drum roll please, let's go ahead
and zoom in here at this location and I will
[00:06:26.49] press the A key in order to
switch to my White Arrow tool.
[00:06:29.31] You can see that now we just have a path
outline selected, which is just about all that the
[00:06:33.91] Join command can accommodate.
[00:06:35.80] So I will marquee these
two coincident endpoints.
[00:06:37.89] We will go up to the Object menu, choose Path,
and choose Join, and sure enough that goes ahead
and works.
[00:06:45.02] And if I click off the anchor point, click
on it and drag it, you can see where we formerly
[00:06:49.63] had two independent endpoints, we now
have a single interior point. All right!
[00:06:54.34] I will press Ctrl+Z or Command+
Z on a Mac to undo that move.
[00:06:56.99] Now we have just two
endpoints left and that's these guys right here.
[00:07:01.32] So I will go ahead and drag this anchor point
until it snaps into alignment with the other
[00:07:04.81] one, then I will marquee the two anchor
points to select them both and I will press Ctrl+J
[00:07:10.04] or Command+J on a Mac, in
order to join them together.
[00:07:13.34] The deed is now done.
[00:07:14.90] Let's go ahead and take a look at our work.
[00:07:16.51] You can switch back to the Preview mode by
pressing the Ctrl key or the Command key on
[00:07:20.01] the Mac, and clicking on that hollow eye in
front of the path outlines layer; or you can
[00:07:24.79] just go up to the View menu and choose the
Preview command to switch the entire illustration
[00:07:29.54] back to the Preview mode.
[00:07:31.28] Now I will press Ctrl+Shift+A or Command+Shift+
A on the Mac, in order to deselect my artwork.
[00:07:35.85] And I will press Ctrl+0 or Command+0
on a Mac, in order to center my zoom.
[00:07:40.73] And that folks is how you combine a
letterform along with a predefined symbol to create a
[00:07:45.73] custom character of type.
[00:07:46.98]