fill objects with cross hatching or dots rather than with solid colour

[Kate Shawver]

this posting is essentially the same as posting swatch pattern #2--the solutions offered do not work for me because I do not have "black-and-white pattern fills in the Illustrator installation" or the cd. want to be able to fill objects with cross hatching or colored dots rather than with solid colour. what is the easiest way to do this please, help!

[Valerie (da V in ci)]

hi Kate,

You could use a clipping mask to make what you are trying to do work.

There are a few ways to go about getting your texture. The best would probably be to create your texture with the Hatch Effects filter, and then put that over the area you want the texture to cover.

To make the hatch effects, draw a box and fill with the color of your choice. Next, go to Filter > Pen & Ink > Hatch Effects. If you want dots, drag the drop down box to dots...if you want cross hatching, drop down to cross hatching. There are many different textures that you can customize to suit your needs. Once you have your texture created, take the object you want textured, copy and paste it in front. Highlight the Hatch effects and the object pasted in front and do a right-click and drag down to clipping mask. You can also get a neat effect with the Opacity Mask feature under the Transparency Palette Menu Options. If you do not want to use the hatch effects, you could always draw your texure using paths for more control.

I hope this helps! If your still confuesed, please respond and I'd be more than happy to explain in more detail. I am waiting to hear a response back on something, so I'll be checking this site off and on for most of the day.

Good Luck! =)

Valerie

[Alexander Kogan.]

Valeri, Kate

you can also just draw the form (or copy/paste in front), fill it with the color you want and then apply the hatch effect to it. It creates the mask automatically from the form, and if you choose "Match object's color" in the Hatch Effects dialog, it makes the hatch of the object's fill color.

[TREVOR BRYDEN]

Kate:
I tried to answer this before but my posting went into cyberspace so if somehow I duplicate myself it's all the computer's fault. I am old enough to have used Letratone and have been a bit disappointed that, try as I might, I could not produce a hatch effect without a squared pattern when I tried to customize a fill. The rasterized cross-hatch is too random for what I wanted.
What I ended up doing is drawing a line with the Pen Tool at the thickness that I wanted on an angle and lone enough to be beyond the dimensions of the object that I wanted to fill. I would then click Object/Path/Outline. Then Object/Transform/Move>enter a value>click Copy in the Move Menu and then Ctl-D until you have enough for your object. Copy the object that you want filled (generally I have done this already to locate my crosshatch lines) and Paste in Front on top of the crosshatch objects. Click on Object/Path/Slice and after it is finished you may have to ungroup and then de-select everything around. Select.Copy and Paste in Front in your Artwork and it is done.
You can do the same with dots but the deselecting process is a bit of a pain because you have to click off parts of the dot and the effect has got to be worth it. The crosshatch effect is as good as good 'old-fashioned' Letratone. ..... Trevor

[Alexander Kogan.]

Trevor,

wow, that's a monumental approach :)

The rasterized cross-hatch is too random for what I wanted.

Frankly, don't know which hatch you are talking about, but the Filter>Pen & Ink>Hatch Effects is pretty adjustable, and you can make a fairly ordered pattern with it by zeroing dispersion and "constanting" the other values, for example. And you can aslo create custom hatches by selecting an object and going Filter>Pen & Ink>New Hatch, and then selecting the new hatch in the Hatch Effects dialog's drop down list.

Your second paragraph can be done in much more simplier way by creating a pattern swatch:

-Create a piece of vertical line say 1cm long.
-Create a rectangle 1cm high, no fill, no stroke, and center it both ways with the line. The rectangle will define your swatch's width, so adjust its width to define the distance between lines in the resulting pattern.
-(optional) Create a new color swatch, check the Global checkbox, and call it, say, "Line Hatch color", then select the line and color it with the hatch. As the color is global, you will be able to change it after creating the pattern, changin the pattern's color on fly.
-Group the line and the rectangle and drag the group to the Swatch palette.

You can apply the swatch to any object. You can change the hatch angle by checking "Transform Patterns Only" in the Transform Palette's menu, and then adjusting the angle value in the palette. It will rotate the pattern and leave the object intact.

[Wade Zimmerman]

I would add that if you give the rectangle a fill of none you will have transparent background to your pattern.

[Alexander Kogan.]

Wade, it was a "rectangle 1cm high, no fill, no stroke".

[Wade Zimmerman]

Sorry didn't notice that, in that case if you want a background color or if you don't want it transpaernt give it a fill and a stroke of the same color.

[Alexander Kogan.]

Wade :))))) Are you a lawyer? :))

[Wade Zimmerman]

Hmm?a lawyer? now that's an idea!

[TREVOR BRYDEN]

Dear Alexander:
I know that my approach is 'monumental' but I had tried both of the suggestions that you mention but the results were, to me, not what I wanted. I want to give the impression of a uniform grey with either a dot pattern or a crosshatch. Filter>Pen and Ink>Hatch effect is not uniform enough and I have made crosshatch swatches but I couldn't guarantee that the diagonal line would line up properly and I was able to see the 'rectangle' that represented my swatch artwork repeated throughout the fill. I tried printing it in case it wouldn't show up as it is printed but it still wasn't good enough. I'm trying to replicate Letratone (or Zipatone) and it is possible that I'm not precise enough in my artwork but I tried it many, many times without success. I have done other patterns without problem the precision of a field of dots or a uniform crosshatch demands is beyond the ability of the 'swatch' method. Also, the artwork that you were suggesting is either horizontal or vertical. I need it on an angle. Anyway, it's not a biggie and it doesn't keep me awake at night. ....... Trevor

[Wade Zimmerman]

You might try the half tone filter oe effect for the dot pattern.

[Ben Salisbury]

Trevor-

Just out of curiosity, Have you tried to contact letraset

<http://www.letraset.com/us/default.asp>

to see if they've developed any Illustrator swatches?

-Ben