Converting AI lines to shapes

[gwpriester]

I purchase a lot of clip art from Shutterstock.com for various projects.

The files, most of which are created in Adobe Illustrator, are fine as long as you don't get too tricky. The problem is the shapes are actually lines.

So if you try to apply a bevel or join the shapes the results are a dog's breakfast. That is a total mess.

You can select these "line" shapes then switch to the Shape Tool, press Tab (which goes to the first node of the line) and hit Enter and the line becomes a shape.

But for the image attached, it is a nightmare because of all the shapes. Here's a faster way I discovered.

Select the image and from Arrange select Break Shapes. The largest shape comes to the front. Send it to the back and give all the shapes an outline so you can see them.

Select all the objects, switch to the Shape Tool. press the Tab key and hit Enter.

This converts all the lines to shapes in one operation. I cannot tell you how many times I have done this one line at a time.