[Waterman]

I need some help.

I need to load a CAD file into Illustrator CS, but when I import it, all the shapes are broken up into their component lines: like, if there's a rectangle in the CAD program, it will turn into four individual lines making up the rectangle. Since I need to apply fills to all the different shapes in the file, I need those to be closed paths. So far, I've tried DWG and DXF formats, but both exhibit the same problem.

Are there preferences in AI that would join all these paths for me automatically upon import? I don't want to have to go through all the shapes' joints and manually join all the corners. That would be an insane amount of work. So, has anyone had success with this or know how to do it?

Thanks for your help!

[andi*pandi]

what else will the CAD program export as? I have done this, but it was a long time ago. Er, and possibly with Freehand.

Perhaps try opening the illustrator file in photoshop and making your fills there a la paintbucket?

[Greg Urban]

There are a couple of options:

A. Select the lines where they intersect w/ the hollow pointer and (Command, j) which is joining two endpoints. Make sure they are not grouped with anything else.

B. If it is a shape of some kind select the whole shape and outline it in the pathfinder tool box.

This should help.