Fastest way to combine paths?

**Jon G** · 12 September 2007, 07:13 AM

Hi,

I received a logo from our sponsor, one that was made with some AutoCAD program (!!!). My contact person has converted this .dwg file to pdf with some freeware application, and the pdf opens just fine in Xara... with one problem:

All the paths that form the logotype are separate lines :-( what would be that easiest way to combine them, so I could fill the shapes? The imported pdf is attached.

thanks for any advice,

.jon

**itsfransie** · 12 September 2007, 07:57 AM

Zoom in on the picture a bit, press ctrl-a (select all), then press f4 for the shape editor. Now left-click a corner of one of the characters, and drag it about one mm until you see a + sign under your mouse cursor, and release the mousebutton. The selected corner point doesn't really move but is joined to the endpoint of the other line. Do this to all the corners and you're done. I think you can do this in less than five minutes.

After you've joined all corners of a single shape, just click on a fill color. If it doesn't fill, you've missed a point. If so, just select a point in the shape and press end, and it'll select the point you've missed.

Good luck,

Frans

Edit: Note that some lines that seem to be a single line are split in two as well.

**Jon G** · 12 September 2007, 08:14 AM

thanks Frans,

I should have added "besides the manual method". I was hoping for some kind of shortcut to maybe "join closest nodes" or similar.

**itsfransie** · 12 September 2007, 08:19 AM

You're not alone hoping for that :-)

**masque** · 12 September 2007, 08:35 AM

Hi
Given that its all just straight lines I would have thought that the quickest method is simply draw by tracing it. A lot quicker than joining line segments together I would think.
Derek

**handrawn** · 12 September 2007, 08:35 AM

or you could try this - which is quick and easy - provided there are no gaps as is the case here [otherwise need to close them]

select all - duplicate - then join shapes ctrl-j - copy this to clipboard
place no-outline rectangle below and subtract shapes ctrl-2
break shapes and remove background - you then have all the fills and you can paste in place the original lines from the clipboard

see attached xar file

**Albacore** · 12 September 2007, 09:18 AM

Steve's method is good! the last A is a bit of a pain but it would be slightly quicker than doing it manually or tracing it but there is not much in it.