Punching Through Issues On Object

[JohnGD]

Hello everyone I have a question regards punching an object through with a rectangle, circle, etc.

So I am working on a design and my design has a circle on the outside so I was going to erase both sides of the circle with 2 rectangles just for the lettering of my design can be on the middle. 

But when I add my two rectangles together and select my circle to punch it through by subtracting something weir happens that my circle gets deform so I have been playing around with it but I am not able to get it right. 

Any suggestion or fix to this issue will be appreciated. Now I am not an expert on this program I just purchased it yesterday. I will leave 2 pictures of the objects I have for further reference on the issue.

[dutchshader]

You could try to expand the stroke first, layer>expand stroke. 

[JohnGD]

I did try that but it was not working. Now I was able to make it work by holding the alt key on my keyboard and doing subtract. 

 

But thank you for the assistance!

Best regards.

[Pšenda]

Draw Circle, menu Layer Expand Stroke.
Draw rectangle, rotate.

Select both layers in Layers panels, Substract.

[loukash]

8 hours ago, JohnGD said:

Any suggestion or fix to this issue will be appreciated.

If you want to keep the circle fully editable:

1. make your circle with a black fill, no stroke
2. center a smaller circle above, of any color fill you like, to mark the width of the "stroke" you want
3. place the rectangle that should cut out the parts above, any color you like, it's just so that you can easily spot the objects in case your design would be more complex:
   
    
4. Click the Subtract button while holding Option/Alt key to create a compound object:
   

Voilà.
Each object within remains fully editable.
If you need a wider stroke, simply select the smaller ellipse and resize it from center while holding option-command (probably alt-ctrl on Win?).