Dotted Lines in Illustrator

markatos17 February 2006 · 12:03

Couldn't find anything here about this. But I am really annoyed with this.

I am working on a business card design and the dotted line border isn't perfect. The corners aren't the same, sometimes they have a dot at the exact corner, sometimes a space. No matter how much I tweek the spacing of the dashes etc. I can't get it to be perfect.

One thing that would work is if I could expand the object and just finesse the dots manually. But it just turns into a solid line when expanded.

Any help here would be appreciated. That dotted line is going to be blind embossed so I really would like to get it right.

Here's a pic:

David Stong17 February 2006 · 12:18

I'd suggest a row of aligned shapes rather than a dotted line; then you could finesse all you want.

markatos17 February 2006 · 12:37

not a bad idea, but a dotted stroke would be easier.

I guess I could make a blend, expand, and distribute/align...

gabrielhl17 February 2006 · 12:49

To make a row of aligned shapes really fast, you could do this:
Create the first shape and put it at the extreme left position, then holding shift and alt, drag it to the right approximately the distance you want between each dot, and release everything - that'll make a copy of the first shape, in the new position. Then press CTRL+D several times. For each time you press, a new object will be created at the same distance from the former. Once you fill the whole width of the card, fine tune using distribute/align and you're done.
(Maybe you knew this already, but anyway...)

markatos17 February 2006 · 13:12

I didn't. Thank You.

Patricia Fabricant17 February 2006 · 13:55

The problem with the aligned shapes method is that your intervals have to work both horizontally and vertically which is tough to do. I don't know why Illustrator can't fix this glitch thru all these versions.

track and kern17 February 2006 · 14:40

you actually can expand a automatically created dashed line into individual dots. its really a stupid thing that when you do it the normal way that it reverts back to a solid line though. anyways, here is how you do it. in your preferences setting in illustrator, change the transparency flattening setting temporarily to all vectors (on the slider bar, move it all the way to the right i think). then choose that line, and flatten it. This is the only way I have ever been able to figure out how to do this in illustrator.

Bob Evans17 February 2006 · 15:02

In Illustrator CS and CS2 all you have to do is Object/Flatten Transparency, click and you have a expanded dashed line.

istitch17 February 2006 · 15:37

nice card!

---------
nc

Pieter van Rosmalen17 February 2006 · 15:46

tel. needs a period, fax don't...

markatos17 February 2006 · 23:33

thanks for the comments...transparency flattening seems to be the fix I was looking for.

timd18 February 2006 · 01:46

You can also use the type along a path feature, using bullet points and justification.

I'd check with your print finisher to see if they are happy to attempt blind embossing those dots, I think it will be tremendously difficult to accurately emboss a large number of business cards, especially that close to the edge. Also the weight and type of the card will affect the final effect (too heavy and absorbent and the dots will start to join). Of course it is possible but it might stretch the budget.
Tim

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