Outline dashed stroke? Ai8

[CouponBoy]

I need to outline every box in the stroke I have put on an object. Can this be done? I have Ai8 and when I use the "outline stroke" command I get a solid stroke around the object, not a collection of boxes like I need. No other Ai gurus have a suggestion aside from "redraw every little box by hand" which seems silly and unnecessary.
Any suggestions? (I'm using Ai8, but have a 9 available to me, 10 at home but thats not really any help at work.)
TIA
Chris

[Joe Duhamel]

If I may make a suggestion - QuarkXPress makes great coupon borders with proper corners. If you have Quark, make your dashed-line boxes there and save as eps - then open that in Illy and you'll note that the dashed lines have already been turned into objects.

[Teri Pettit]

With AI 8, there is no way to convert a dashed stroke to separate filled pieces.

With AI 9 or 10, if you select the dashed object and apply the Object>Flatten Transparency... command and check the "Convert All Strokes to Outlines" option, it will convert the dash pieces to little pieces (in a compound path.)

In AI 8, however, if you use a pattern brush instead of a regular dashed stroke, you can do an Object>Expand, and get the little pieces back. Pattern brushes also expand and contract nicely to fit the path length so that your dashes always align at corners and you don't get any ugly short dashes.

So, best option, get your employer to upgrade to AI 10.

Second option: take your work home, do the flattening there, and save as AI 8. Not ideal, but better than tracing each dash piece by hand.

Third option: switch to using pattern brushes instead of regular dashed strokes. There may be some dash brushes in the brush libraries.

[Steven Lyons]

AFAIK, you can't convert dashes to outlines in AI. You will always get a solid filled object. Maybe somebody out there has a workaround?

[Wade Zimmerman]

Steven as treri wrote you flatten the transparency and select convert all strokes to outline in AI 9 and 10. So there is a simple way.

[Teri Pettit]

My post is time-stamped 12:08 and Steven's is stamped 12:11 so they probably crossed in the mail.

[CouponBoy]

Thanks so much all!
Very helpful Teri!
CP

[Steven Lyons]

Yo Wade. Read what Teri said. And also I was referring to AI 8 (left out the '8' in that sentence).

[Wade Zimmerman]

I read it!