Re: Multiple Object Fill?
I use xara designer for illustration and very little else - and I also draw freehand
yes, a bucket fill tool would be useful - but such tools function according to algorithms that will not give perfect results under all circumstances, and this includes illustrator
there is a lot to be said for having your fill shapes separate from your line art, especially if you want to feather the fill edges, use clipview to manage highlights and shadows, apply blur etc... having the colouration on the same shape as the lines can work fine for simple tasks, but sooner or later it can end up a pita in itself
duplicate the layer that has your line art [which remains unjoined]
select all lines on the bottom layer [ctrl+a]
from arrange menu select 'convert line to shape'
then arrange menu combine shapes > add shapes [ctrl+1]
[if you have the pro version you can set a keystroke for 'convert line to shape' - even quicker]
then you can arrange menu break shapes [again you can set a keystroke for this in pro] - remember there will be a top shape hiding the shapes below this is often useful to colour white and send to the back so you can use it to block the background out when applying transparency to the other shapes
it won't work if there are gaps in the line art - but then that's true of illustrator [there is a auto gap feature in illustrator live paint, but again it aint perfect]
also good practice to have all your text on seperate layer[s], especially if you export to PDF where you may have to convert text to shapes first for it to work properly [equivalent of converting to outlines in illustrator]
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