Release all compound paths at the same time?

[Taylor810]

Platform: PC/Windows XP SP2
Adobe: Illustrator CS3 (13.0.2)

Is it possible to release all compound paths in an illustration at the same time (and if so - how)?

I receive drawings from engineering in either PDF or CGM format, which I edit in Illustrator and save as AI. I have to release compound paths in order to delete specific parts of the drawing.

This isn't difficult, but it is very time-consuming because the CGM(or PDF)-to-Illustrator conversion results in quite a few compound paths.

Thanks - I appreciate your help,

Dan

[Guest]

Select all, go to Object>Compound Path>Release.

[Taylor810]

Sorry -- I forgot to mention that I tried that; some of the compound paths were released but there were still quite a few that weren't...

[Guest]

Hmm...That's always worked for me. Are the ones that aren't getting released part of a clipping mask, or locked, or on a different layer, etc?

[Taylor810]

None of the above... I'll spend some time to see if I can figure out what the un-released paths have in common & repost if I figure it out. Thanks - I really appreciate you replying so quickly.

[Jesseham-jc1rvC]

Are they all compound paths or are some of them compound shapes?

Try release/expand compound shape?

[Taylor810]

Hi jesseham,

Yeah, they are all compound paths. If I ever resolve this, I'll leave a post. Thanks,

Dan

[Wade_Zimmerman1]

Are they grouped?

[MandoAnne]

Did you ever figure out how to release all compound paths at once? I tried the Select All, Object, Compound Path, Release. After I did this 3 times, the 4th time Release was grayed out, so I couldn't select it. It was helpful but still left my PDF-converted-to-AI drawing with "connected" entities. There seems to be a difference between selecting via a window crossing vs. selecting via clicking. I am still unable to select the entities I want to edit without including other unwanted entities. Anyone?

[Guest]

SOUNDS LIKE THOSE OBJECTS ARE GROUPED, PRESS CTRL-SHIFT-G

[CorrinaKeeling]

thanks for the help, no need to shout.

[SatbirArora]

Use this script

var doc=activeDocument;

var sel = doc.selection;

var len = sel.length;

while(len--)

{

   if(sel[len].typename ==="CompoundPathItem"){

  sel[len].selected=false;

   }

}

alert("Only non-compound items are selected.");

Source: Scripting Illustrator: Select Compound Paths only