Join all overlapping points

[DogCollarLabor]

Useful when importing DXF files that are to be laser cut or sent to a vinyl cutter. Also a view option that overlays path direction arrows and print order numbers.

[dunaz]

Actually, you can join overlapping points. I do it all the time with dielines, as they come from the engineers as separate lines. Just select the lines that make up the shape you want to "join" and command+j. Sometimes it's tricky, depends on the direction of the lines and such, so sometimes you have to select a few pieces, join, select a few more pieces, join. Depends I guess on how the items are layered.

Check it out. Here's the info from the help files (I searched "join paths"):

Join two or more paths

Illustrator CS5 provides the option to join two or more open paths. To join one or more open paths, use the Selection tool to select the open paths and click Object > Path > Join. You can also use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+J (Windows) or Cmd+J (Mac).

When anchor points are not overlapping, Illustrator adds a line segment to bridge the paths to join. While joining more than two paths, Illustrator first looks for and joins the paths that have end points stationed closest to each other. This process is repeated until all paths are joined. If you select only one path to join, it is converted into a closed path.

Note: In this process, you may lose complex aspects of your art styles.

The output path has the appearance of the topmost path in the selection.

The join option only results in a corner join regardless of whether you select anchor points to join or the entire path. However, for overlapping anchor points, if you want the option to select a smooth or corner join, then use Ctrl+Shift+Alt+J (Windows) or Cmd+Shift+Option+J (Mac OS).

[ZacharyGuidry]

Ha! This really does work. At fist I thought @dunaz was talking about manually joining each set of points. But, I brought artwork in from Cinema 4D, hit 'select all' then 'control-j' and everything was connected. Then I ran 'Object' -> 'Path' -> 'Simplify' to reduce the number of points. This question seems to have been solved long ago.

[wernerb41313967]

Try"divide objects below" also found under Object > Path ->. make sure you have a rectangle covering your art board though. Seems to work really fast instead of connecting everything.

[Dave___0]

I had to deal with this on a recent vinyl cutting job.  Got the art in, it looked amazing, but there were all kinds of things that over lapped.

The easiest way that I found to deal with this was in the AI file, before exporting to DXF.
First things first, find and remove any clipping paths (use the layers panel to go through all the groups, mavoe the paths to the main group (if they are in a sub group with the clipping path) and then once the sub group has nothing but the clipping path in it you can just highlight the group and then click DELETE LAYER.  (keep an eye on the art and make sure the removal of the clipping paths doesnt change the art, if it does you may need to go in an clean up the art)

next highlight all the art.  I just use CTRL+A (command+A on mac) then press CTRL+SHIFT+F9 (Command+Shift+F9 on mac) to bring up your Pathfinder panel.

In the path finder panel (with all your art still selected) click the first icon in the top row (ADD)

BOOM! all the overlapping sections have been merged together. 

Once youve had to do this a few times it gets quick.  Depending on the art you can do it in less then 5 min.

dunaz​ I have tried that method and it can work, but it can also create "holes" where the overlap is.
I search for a few hours, and tried all the other mentioned solutions but the one I have described above worked the best for me on this job.  (converting Black and White illustrations to Vinyl decals)

[GoMariusz]

CMD+A

CMD+J

Voilà