Newbie goes nut trying a Compound Path

[raffa]

Hello!

My problem basically boils down to this:

I have a large rectangle. Black fill, black stroke. Inside that large rectangle is a smaller circle. Black fill, white stroke.
Think of it as a very simple camera icon.

When I try to turn that into a Compound Path, it cuts out the entire circle from the rectangle, creating a big white hole.
I'm going nuts over this.
I've tried everything: setting the circle's fill to nothing, to white, setting the stroke to nothing, to black, sending it to the back. etc...

Please, help me!

- Raffa

[Albacore]

If you use just "Expand" instead of expand appearance you get different options. Anyway even though you used the latter can't see why you get a hole as you would at least have had to use the Pathfinder tool. Have a look at my file if I can upload it it was done with CS6. Sorry had to zip it to get it uploaded

[raffa]

If you use just "Expand" instead of expand appearance you get different options. Anyway even though you used the latter can't see why you get a hole as you would at least have had to use the Pathfinder tool. Have a look at my file if I can upload it it was done with CS6. Sorry had to zip it to get it uploaded

Hi Albacore, thanks for your answer.

In the .ai you provided, the shapes are not one compound path. If I make one, I get the same issue with a large white hole appearing.

[handrawn]

if you just went to object/compound path/make - then you would get a 'hole' as you have only one fill area

if you select both your rectangle and circle and as suggested go to window/pathfinder and select 'divide,' and then go to object/compound path/make - you will get a compound object with two fill areas

bear in mind that although compound, as it is one path, the outlines can only be one colour [ditto fill areas for colour/gradient] AFAIK [in the sense that there is only one actual outline and one actual fill even though they are split into more than one area]

and I am using an older version of illy so things may be a little different in that respect..