GF UI Issue

I am having a problem with the attached file. The GF UI insists its a single object, even though I have modified it in illustrator to have different colors for each cut line. Each object shows up individually in the UI, but when you click on the objects in the main window, it only selects them as a group. I also tried ungrouping the objects in Illustrator, but it didn’t change the behavior.

Edge lit wedding sign v4.pdf (50.7 KB)

You’ve got a lot of exact overlap in many places on those vector shapes - try adding in just a point or two of space between your shapes. (You don’t want the double burn anyway - it will char and ruin your tabs.)

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Yea this is a direct design from Makercase. I was planning on dragging each item a bit off from each other, but couldn’t since it would select the whole thing.

To be fair I see this sometimes in svgs that are particularly complex. I havent been able to nail down the cause yet, but it appears that some part of my workflow inputs some sort of objects that overlap the others. I try to set a full or stroke on these “invisible” objects, and nothing happens.

It seems to happen when I pull the SVGs from sketchup more than any other situation. I keep meaning to try to duplicate it but just haven’t had the time.

The way I find them is to click on one path, select all that are the same color (which in these cases has meant “every path”), and then cut. Control-A after that should show anything that was left behind… and I see these weird select boxes with nothing in them.

I delete them and then do a paste in place (putting my paths back) and all seems right. It’s weird but then so is my workflow, I use a third party plugin for sketchup and it’s a little twitchy to say the least.

So, short version: have you looked for weird hidden objects in your imported svg bits?

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You need to move them slightly apart from each other in Illustrator. I’ve found that if objects are touching even if they are different colors, the GFUI sees them as a single object when selecting them.

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That’s the bug… Each item has a different color and shows up in the UI as a different object. It shouldn’t be grouped…

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Just move them apart in Illustrator so they aren’t sharing bounding box information. That’s how the GFUI works to handle complex designs that people wanted to remain grouped together for ease of use. It used to be that there was no grouping in the GFUI at all and there was no way to easily select objects that were “underneath” others without moving things out of the way first and losing alignment.

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The technique to “select same” and then "cut"works, but there are also the commands to consider:

Command+2 = lock (not selectable)
Command+option+2 = unlock

Command+3 = hide
Command+option+3 = unhide

I’m exploring and will let you know when I learn more.

Thanks Rita

Thank you for your patience. I’m sorry for the confusion.

Like @Jules mentioned, any touching or overlapping shapes will be grouped and move together as a single object. Using multiple colors in your design will create separate print steps, but these steps are not related to the groups for moving and placing designs.

Thanks for the feedback. I’ll make a note that that isn’t clear and share it with the team.