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Design Illustrator Foundations Applying Effects Pathfinder Effects

Posted by ramseydennis
ramseydennis
4,530 Points

What are the differences between Trim and Merge? Visually they seem pretty similar.

Hey everyone,

What are the differences between Trim and Merge?

I know Mat says that "Merge", merges the objects - and furthermore implies that "Trim" does not do this - but practically speaking, what does this mean?

What does "merging" mean exactly? And how does this feature differ from what trimming does?

Also - what are the key differences between the two effects, visually speaking?

Thanks in advance -

2 Answers

Codin - Codesmite
Codin - Codesmite
8,600 Points
Codin - Codesmite
Codin - Codesmite
8,600 Points

Trim and Merge seem identical visually but there is a slight difference that is hard to notice unless you have two shapes with the same fill colour.

Trim restricts operations to the shape's visible boundaries where as Merge combines all visually similar touching shapes.

I've quickly created an example in illustrator that should visually explain better then I can explain it in writing:

trimvsmerge

ramseydennis
ramseydennis
4,530 Points
ramseydennis
ramseydennis
4,530 Points

Thanks for this explanation and demonstration, Ashley. I appreciate it.