Remove Duplicate Paths added to ToolShed
ToolShed has added a new feature in a free update: Remove Duplicate Paths. Here’s how it works. In this exercise we have a blue rectangle, an orange open path with four segments directly on the rectangle’s sides, and a yellow path over two of the segments. You can select paths to evaluate for duplicate paths, but since this test document has only these three paths, you can choose Object > Path > Remove Duplicate Paths with nothing selected to parse all paths in the document.
A dialog will inform you that it removed six duplicate segments, or four from the orange path and two from the yellow path.
The blue path was found to have duplicate segments, so it has been selected.
Note that the path on the bottom is preserved, and identical segments above it are removed.
Here is an example of a more complex file, which is probably more typical of where you would use this feature. A CAD drawing of a historic railroad caboose was imported into Adobe Illustrator, and we’ll check for duplicate paths. Because there are so many paths in this file, you will be given a progress dialog.
When it finishes, you will be shown how many duplicates were found.
Finally, you will see the selected paths where the duplicate paths were found.
In this case, we can see that the paths with duplicate segments were areas with a filled, non-stroked path, so the presence of duplicate segments is OK. We can simply Undo the operation and be assured that we have a clean drawing to work with.
As with other ToolShed functions, it can be recorded as part of an Action and assigned a keyboard shortcut to streamline your workflow. I recommend using the free Select Menu plugin to lock or hide paths that you don’t want parsed for possible deletion.
Download ToolShed now, or simply click the Update button when your current ToolShed plugin prompts you for the update. Remove Duplicate Paths added to ToolShed plugin for Adobe Illustrator 2022-2025 only.
