I created a half of a heart using a curve, mirrored it to create the other side, and then created a rectangle to act as a support.
I’d like to basically union these two objects into an outline that I can use to cut out the combined shape, but i just couldn’t get it to work. I tried object to path and union with no joy. can anyone provide some insight?
(trying to sort out how to update the svg. when I select upload, it seems to upload an image of the svg, but only half of it.)
I don’t have your file or know what software you’re using but… you sound like you’re speaking inkscape so I’ll assume.
Ungroup anything that might be.
Make sure your heart is joined at the nodes. It should be a single path object where the nodes aren’t broken.
Ensure that your rectangle is a path and not a rectangle object. I think it’s path->object to path.
Select the heart and rectangle, select Path-> exclusion.
You should be done. If it goes wacky, some path actions care about z-order so try putting the rectangle u see or on top of the heart. I feel like exclude maybe doesn’t care, but with things like cut path it matters a great deal.
I’m guessing the mirrored shape isn’t joined, as you mentioned. If it’s just an open path (or 2 open paths in this case, or any number of open paths) there isn’t a logical way for it to proceed.
Yup. That’s why I called it out. Seems like something I’d do.
Create the full heart shape. (Join it if you haven’t.) Fill it with color, no stroke.
Create the rectangular frame shape. (Subtract the front filled rectangle from the filled back rectangle using Minus Front. It creates a Compound Path.)
Overlap the heart on the frame in a couple of places and use the Union tool.
(Btw Jules was just speaking an obscure dialect called “adobeillustratorese”)
Ooops! Are we Inkscaping? Apologies. 
thanks a bunch everyone. will check the drawing when I get home. btw, is there any way to attach that file as just an attachment? it’s an svg file that seems to get added as a rendering.
If you search for attach svg you’ll find lots of posts about it. Tl;dr… you basically drop it in as the svg but then you look at the emtext for dimensions. Sometimes it’ll say like 19x10, you can modify those numbers to get it to be a visible size. That is, scale that up to 380x200 for example.
Or if you Zip it first it won’t disappear on you. 
Ok, here is the file. I tried object to path and both exclusion and union. My desired result is an outline around the heart and the rectangle, that excludes the tip of the heart.
heartAndBox.zip (2.0 KB)
what…did…you…do… grumble.
oh, and ty jules. 
Wasn’t that right?
(I did all those weird “adobeillustratorese” things I mentioned above. You have to join the two halves of the heart together into one closed shape before you can merge it. That’s the only thing you might have missed.)
What’s the right process to join the two halves in inkscape (and yes, that is what I missed).
Well, that isn’t as easy for me to tell you…I think you need to first convert each of the two halves to a Path (Path > Object to Path) then you need to go into the Edit Paths by Nodes Menu (F2) and use the Join Selected Nodes with a New Segment tool on the two open endpoints.
There’s probably an easier way to do it, I just don’t use Inkscape. 
I’ll give it a shot and report back. thanks again for that
No problem…Dave can probably give you more ideas, he uses Inkscape.
you were right. you select edit paths, select the nodes you want to join, then click “join selected nodes”. that said, even it joined, I’m having an issue getting the two objects to union with your result.