bushu919 Posted November 10, 2014 Share Posted November 10, 2014 In Illustrator I have live traced/expanded a person's signature and imported it in AD. While cleaning it up, I am unable to join where the line has not connected (imagine the top of a cursive letter L). How can I "merge" two ends of the same object? I will use the vector file to laser cut a piece of wood so I need to work on one layer. I'm a newb to all of this, so thanks for walking me through it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Staff MEB Posted November 10, 2014 Staff Share Posted November 10, 2014 If you want to merge the ends, just drag one end over the other. If both belong to the same shape, Affinity Designer will close it automatically. If you want a line joining the two ends, select the shape and go to the context toolbar on top and press Close Curve button on the Action section (second icon). Affinity Designer will add a line connecting the two ends and close the shape. Quote A Guide to Learning Affinity Software Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bushu919 Posted November 10, 2014 Author Share Posted November 10, 2014 Thank you MEB. For whatever reason, overlapping the ends does not close the loop for me, nor did the Close Curve button. Your suggestion of adding a line prompted me to draw a line (actually a closed rectangle/trapezoid) which connected the two ends and, when both were selected, enabled the Add button. This worked. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Staff MEB Posted November 10, 2014 Staff Share Posted November 10, 2014 If it's not closing the shape automatically it's probably because there's another "open" node somewhere in the shape. Make sure you have Snap to selected curves pressed in the context toolbar in the Snap section. Quote A Guide to Learning Affinity Software Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shaker242 Posted July 12, 2015 Share Posted July 12, 2015 I followed the steps, but it's not working form me. I have 3 lines, one is arc'ed to curve across the two other directional lines. All I want is to join the three lines (maintaining the shape) and it fill it. Some options close out the arc and then add color to some magical line that appears across the arc and the arc itself - never the full shape. What am I missing? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Staff MEB Posted July 12, 2015 Staff Share Posted July 12, 2015 Hi Shaker242, Welcome to Affinity Forums :) Can you post the image again. I'm not able to see it. Quote A Guide to Learning Affinity Software Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shaker242 Posted July 13, 2015 Share Posted July 13, 2015 Actually, creating it as a single shape and not 3 lines, solves my problem. Because these are directional lines, I have to create them twice; the first time to get the directional degree correct and the second time to build the shape to fill. Here is a link to the original image: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B9FLiAM0AlbaY3hkRHY2VUM1eFk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Staff MEB Posted July 13, 2015 Staff Share Posted July 13, 2015 Hi Shaker242, thanks for the image. Select all three lines, change to the Node Tool, enable Snap to selected curves in the Snap section on the context toolbar (the first icon), then drag a node from each corner away a little then back to over the other where it was. You should see a yellow circle or square when both match the same exact position. After doing this for the three corners and with all objects still selected, click on Join Curves from the Action section in the context toolbar (fourth icon). This will join them all creating a closed shape. You can now fill the shape as you wish. bowen192 1 Quote A Guide to Learning Affinity Software Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shaker242 Posted July 13, 2015 Share Posted July 13, 2015 I think the yellow box is the trick I was missing. I've now joined the three lines and filled the shape as expected - thank you for your help! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Staff MEB Posted July 13, 2015 Staff Share Posted July 13, 2015 You're welcome. Glad to know it's sorted out. Albo 1 Quote A Guide to Learning Affinity Software Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Albo Posted October 14, 2015 Share Posted October 14, 2015 Just what I needed ! Thanks. Quote iMac mid-2017 3,6 Ghz / 32G Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spinko Posted January 25, 2017 Share Posted January 25, 2017 Hi, I'm using the latest version of AD on a Mac and I cannot get three lines to connect to form a single line.. Have used the method described here but no joy. In Illustrator, the command "Path > Join" (cmd-J) does the job with one click. What am I doing wrong ? Thank's Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
R C-R Posted January 25, 2017 Share Posted January 25, 2017 spinko, if you select all three lines in the Layers menu & with the Node tool active click on the Join Curves action in the Context toolbar, what happens? When I do that with three two node straight lines positioned as in your screenshot, I get a single line with six nodes -- because I did not snap any ends together, I get two segments connecting the gaps between the lines. Do you get something different? Quote All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7 Affinity Photo 1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Staff MEB Posted January 25, 2017 Staff Share Posted January 25, 2017 Hi spinko, Welcome to Affinity Forums :) Check the clip below. Let me know if you still have trouble. Quote A Guide to Learning Affinity Software Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
R C-R Posted January 25, 2017 Share Posted January 25, 2017 MEB, I do not see any clip .... Quote All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7 Affinity Photo 1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spinko Posted January 25, 2017 Share Posted January 25, 2017 Thank's guy's ;-) your comments and video did it for me.... I just have to get used to the slightly different approach but all is looking very promising ;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
filipejsbrandao Posted April 8, 2018 Share Posted April 8, 2018 I have done this multiple times but for some reason it is not working with this file. I went over all the answers in this post but I still can't connect the lines. This file was printed to pdf in Rhino. In rhino each polygon is a polyline. Some layers have more than a polyline. Affinity Designer merges objects in each layer into a group. Ungroup doesn't separate the several poly lines and if I try to add fill only some get fill. Dividing the group splits the largest poly into lines but then it isn't possible to join them again! I uploaded the original pdf and the resulting file after dividing the polylines. Rua1.pdf Rua1.afdesign Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mwcs Posted August 31, 2018 Share Posted August 31, 2018 I appreciate this is a very old thread, but I have a recurring problem. I cannot close curves and I cannot work out why. Previously I used Macromedia Freehand and Illustrator, so I expect to be able to select two open ends and then click "Join curves" to connect the selected ends. I have read various Affinity help files, forum threads and user-generated "tutorial" videos, but I cannot understand the Affinity logic... or keep forgetting the Affinity way of doing it because it doesn't make any sense to me. I have replicated everything in the above video and much more besides but I cannot get my lines to connect. What am I doing wrong please. Four screen grabs attached. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
R C-R Posted August 31, 2018 Share Posted August 31, 2018 2 minutes ago, mwcs said: I have replicated everything in the above video and much more besides but I cannot get my lines to connect. The presence of the two red nodes indicates you have two open curves. So the first step is to use "Join Curves" to convert them into one open curve. The next step is to use "Close Curve" to connect the open ends. It looks like you are doing this in the reverse order -- if you close the curves first, there will be no open ends to join. Quote All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7 Affinity Photo 1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mwcs Posted August 31, 2018 Share Posted August 31, 2018 5 minutes ago, R C-R said: The presence of the two red nodes indicates you have two open curves. So the first step is to use "Join Curves" to convert them into one open curve. The next step is to use "Close Curve" to connect the open ends. It looks like you are doing this in the reverse order -- if you close the curves first, there will be no open ends to join. Thanks, but I tried that and have attached what happens Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
R C-R Posted August 31, 2018 Share Posted August 31, 2018 1 minute ago, mwcs said: Thanks, but I tried that and have attached what happens Did you first select both curves & use "Join Curves" to join them and then use "Close Curves" to close the gap between them? Quote All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7 Affinity Photo 1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mwcs Posted August 31, 2018 Share Posted August 31, 2018 1 minute ago, R C-R said: Did you first select both curves & use "Join Curves" to join them and then use "Close Curves" to close the gap between them? Yes I tried that but it does not respond as expected. Background info: I first used "Break curves" to re-arrange the shape and then was hoping to join them together in a different way. I guess Affinity can't cope with that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
R C-R Posted August 31, 2018 Share Posted August 31, 2018 4 minutes ago, mwcs said: Yes I tried that but it does not respond as expected. Can you post a screenshot of what you get after joining the two curves but before trying to close the resulting curve? Do this with the node tool selected so we can see the nodes like in your first screenshot. Quote All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7 Affinity Photo 1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mwcs Posted August 31, 2018 Share Posted August 31, 2018 As far as I can tell, nothing happens. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mwcs Posted September 1, 2018 Share Posted September 1, 2018 I guess my question is, if two ends were once joined, can they ever be joined to any other end? In my experience the answer seems to be "no". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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