Adobe Illustrator - Groups/Layers question... urgent

Author

Groups/Layers question... urgent

Nightcruiser

2006-08-07, 6:16 pm

Hi,

We just spent quite a bit of money on a flying knife machine to cut out
artwork that is in AI (very much like a sign cutter). My problem is,
I'm using illustrator to create some art that is, say, 2" x 2". I want
to create the art on one layer and the die line on another layer. So I
do that.

Now, I want to take that, group it, and create as many on the page as I
can, so I Alt+Shift+Drag once to the right, then Ctrl D a few time to
get one row at the top of the page.

Then I Alt+Shift Drag once down, and I get a second row. I then Ctrl D
a few time to repeat this and fill out the page to the bottom.

Now I have a grid of maybe 4 across and 3 down. What I want to do now
is ungroup so I send ONLY the dieline layer to the cutter. But, all of
my layer assignments are gone, because I grouped them.

Is there a way to create a group but keep the layer assignments?
Otherwise I need to reselct all the dielines again and send them to the
dieline layer. Not so bad with 12, but some pieces of art are smaller,
and there are maybe 50 on the page.

Any ideas??

Thanks,

NC

inez

2006-08-07, 6:16 pm

On 8/7/06 9:56 AM, Nightcruiser commented:

> Hi,
>
> We just spent quite a bit of money on a flying knife machine to cut out
> artwork that is in AI (very much like a sign cutter). My problem is,
> I'm using illustrator to create some art that is, say, 2" x 2". I want
> to create the art on one layer and the die line on another layer. So I
> do that.
>
> Now, I want to take that, group it, and create as many on the page as I
> can, so I Alt+Shift+Drag once to the right, then Ctrl D a few time to
> get one row at the top of the page.
>
> Then I Alt+Shift Drag once down, and I get a second row. I then Ctrl D
> a few time to repeat this and fill out the page to the bottom.
>
> Now I have a grid of maybe 4 across and 3 down. What I want to do now
> is ungroup so I send ONLY the dieline layer to the cutter. But, all of
> my layer assignments are gone, because I grouped them.
>
> Is there a way to create a group but keep the layer assignments?
> Otherwise I need to reselct all the dielines again and send them to the
> dieline layer. Not so bad with 12, but some pieces of art are smaller,
> and there are maybe 50 on the page.
>
> Any ideas??
>
> Thanks,
>
> NC
>

First let me ask, why are you grouping the art with the dieline when you
don't want to print the art?

I'm not sure of your exact needs, but you might experiment with this:
Draw your art on one layer at top left, dieline on another. You can group
your art if you want, but don't group with the dieline.
Select All, Effect>Distort & Transform>Transform: 2.5" horizontal offset, 2
copies. With all still selected, transform again: -2.5" vertical, 3 copies.

You'll see that everything remains one their separate layers, but in Layers
palette you will see your dielines as one path in its layer, your art as one
group in its layer. You can hide or delete the art layer to print your
dielines. If you want to edit your art or your dielines you can do so on the
original top left artwork and it will change all the duplicates on the page.
Nifty!

Now, if for some reason you need everything broken down into singular pathes
you can Object>Expand Appearance, but it will break your art down so that
strokes and paths are separate pieces too. I'm still using Illy 9.0.2
though, so perhaps you have other options. I find this aspect kinda
frustrating.

inez