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Wish - bulk removal of layer effects and perhaps more


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I have a number of illustrations in Designer with many different effects that I want to remove so that I can continue working with the pure vector objects. They are in many levels in the layers panel, and there are a lot of them, and I just want to get rid of them in one go.

I think there is a lack of a document cleanup feature of some kind via a dialogue, and I'm not thinking of using select same, but something more direct. There must be other things that others would like to clean up content from time to time, also in Publisher and Photo.

I guess I can export without rasterising... but I'm looking for something with more control and predictability. :-)

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View > View Mode > Hide Effects

Can hide them but not delete them from the document, if that helps

To save time I am currently using an automated AI to reply to some posts on this forum. If any of "my" posts are wrong or appear to be total b*ll*cks they are the ones generated by the AI. If correct they were probably mine. I apologise for any mistakes made by my AI - I'm sure it will improve with time.

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8 hours ago, Aurea Ratio said:

I have a number of illustrations in Designer with many different effects that I want to remove so that I can continue working with the pure vector objects.

While you are waiting for something to happen, you might like to try this short procedure - see attached video:

  1. Draw a (temporary) shape, any will do;
  2. Use menu “Edit → Copy”;
  3. Select the layers you want to remove the Effects from;
  4. Use menu “Edit → Paste FX”;
  5. Delete the temporary shape.

It’s not a simple as a single menu selection but it’s reasonably quick and easy to do.

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Create a default style and select all objects that have FX applied and give it this style to remove FX(this may alter fill/stroke color too)
Alternatively  you can Drag/Drop the FX letters inside a layer in the layers panel to the trash can in the layers panel to remove FX from that layer.
(shift/ctrl +select doesn't work here though)




 

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Another option (depending on your requirements) might be to export the document as a PDF 1.4 with Advanced Features turned off and Rasterize set to Nothing, then re-import the PDF.

Note that the preview displayed for this export (at least on macOS) is not accurate, as it continues to show the FX applied in spite of the fact that they are not included in the exported document.

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Thanks for the suggestions. 🙂

Yes, I'm familiar with the copy-paste and default style FX trick where, without a real FX, you 'reset' and remove FX from the target objects. Unfortunately, as I understand it, it's something you can do only on selected objects. The same goes for dragging FX to the trash icon. It's only useful on a small local scale.

I have some quite extensive illustrations from my many hours in Designer, where I've used FX and now need to use the illustrations without FX, in some cases because I need pure vector, and in other cases because I used too much or inappropriate FX on numerous objects. Unfortunately, this FX is now on hundreds of objects in a complex hierarchy. Manually tracing them and removing FX is something I won't find the time or inclination to do, so I was hoping there was a search and replace or clean up feature.

I am well aware of the No FX view, which is a brilliant performance feature. It was actually through that I discovered the potential in my illustrations without all the FX.

Exporting to SVG or PDF is the total emergency brake solution, because as I remember, layers, groups, masks, and names are saved very differently, and then it doesn't matter with such large objects.

It's not really something I need every day, but I thought it was an idea possibly as part of a better select XYZ or search and replace functionality. It's not always that you build something linearly from start to finish, but often build on something or remodel. Sometimes significantly.

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