Hey guys,

I spent the past 6 hours editing a multilayer design in order to clean things up. After making templates for all my layers that will be used to re-create the holes in the designs using Path>Difference, I found that I am unable to use the template layers because it shows the tiny scissors that apparently means the templates were clipped. Is there any way to flatten these designs so I can use them as intended? If not, then I just pissed away 6 hours for nothing. 

The first image is the design I started with and had to pull different pieces out of it for separate layers. I did this by using an inverse clip at first in order to make the holes solid pieces so that I can clean up the shapes and recreate the holes later.

The second image is one of the templates for one of the layers. I basically had to go in and delete everything else that was in the first layer to end up with this. It took forever because it was so intricate and I had to use the pen tool to try and select all the pieces. 

The third image shows what happens when I try to use Path>Difference to create the design. 

Using:

Windows 10

Inkscape 1.3 (0e150ed6c4, 2023-07-21)

This design I believe was done in adobe originally. I hired someone to design it but it was not quite what I was looking for so I figured I would just fix it to my liking. Thinking that may not have been a good move.

Thanks,

Shawn

Hello Shawn

I can't understand what's your goal ? Can you explain us more ?

The first picture (named "3"...) is your starting point ? Could you upload it to see what's going on ?

You want to separate the design into multiples layers / files to send it to a cutter/plotter ?

note4shawn

I found that I am unable to use the template layers because it shows the tiny scissors that apparently means the templates were clipped. Is there any way to flatten these designs so I can use them as intended?

Clips can be released by a right clic on clipped object (on canvas or in object's panel) and do "Release Clip".

Because this was originally an adobe file, it may have been exported/imported through the pdf importer. If so, all the objects may have clips applied.

That could be good or bad... 

• the bad: all the work may need to be redone
• the good:  all the clips can be removed en masse and the remaining objects might be ready for easy separation into layers.

If the original .ai or pdf file is available, please attach to a reply.

Hey sorry I did not do a very good job explaining my situation. It was not a great day at that point. Anyway, I was able to salvage my designs. It took me about an hour to come up with what I needed. I ended up releasing the clips and then figuring out exactly what was going on inside the clipped paths. Once I was able to determine that, I was able to delete some stuff and use other stuff to make the designs I needed. 

It was a learning lesson for sure. For some reason I don't quite understand the clipping function. Probably won't use it much going forward. I knew when I first tried it and was able to do what I wanted with it that it was going to bite me in some way. I should have just done it the old school way I have always used. 

Anyway, Sorry for the confusing post. 

Thanks for trying to assist me! Much appreciated!