Invisible lines

[ardsley@adobeforums.com]

I am working with AI 10.0.3 under Windows 2000. What would make lines (paths) visible in the outline view, but invisible in the Preview view? The paths have color and weight. I have deleted AIPrefs. Any help is greatly appreciated!

[Jonathan_McClintic@adobeforums.com]

Are you sure that the paths in question have a stroke. Often if you import an object into Illustrator from say Powerpoint, you get what amounts to tons of extra clipping mask when the object is ungrouped. You have to get rid of all the clipping mask before you can finally get to the object that you wish to edit. I usually select the whole object, then release all the clipping mask , , then ungroup all. Then in keyline view, delete all the random clipping mask, since you can see them there.

Jonathan

[Alexander_Kogan.@adobeforums.com]

What would make lines (paths) visible in the outline view, but invisible
in the Preview view? The paths have color and weight.




Clipping Masks is a good guess, Jonathan.

Another thing would be to check their appearance. Open the Appearance palette (Shift-F6) select the object and see what's in the stack. Try reducing to basic appearance (there's a button at the bottom of the Appearance palette).

[ardsley@adobeforums.com]

I appreciate the suggestions, but neither seem to be the problem. The line work was created right in the Illustrator file - nothing was imported form Power Point or anywhere else. And I couldn't "reduce to basic appearance" because it wouldn't let me! The stroke box in to toolbox shows a stroke color. These lines were created as single strokes, then converted to outlines, and then all were combined with "add to shape area" in the Pathfinder pallette. After several attempts, I finally got that layer done, saving the work frequently under a variety of names. Then I attempted to add an anchor point to one line, and all the lines became invisible!! Control-Z did NOT get them back! And here's the really crazy thing - - I figured I'd just go back to the last saved version, and its lines were invisible upon opening the file! And that goes for all of the earlier saved versions! I am totally baffled!!!

[Jonathan_McClintic@adobeforums.com]

What about other files that you open? Can you draw new objects in the file and have them appear. Maybe you can post the file somewhere so we can look at it and see if we have the same problem with that file.

[Alexander_Kogan.@adobeforums.com]

....I seem to remember something similar among the thread here, and it was about video drivers. Are you on nVidia?

A"nother thing: have you tried copying/pasting the objects to another document?

[ardsley@adobeforums.com]

Alexander - Yes: NVIDIA GeForce2 MX 100/200. (Other specs are: Windows 2000 Professional; Service Pack 4; Intel Pentium 4; 1.70 GHz;
785,712 KB Ram). And yes - I tried cutting and pasting to a new document, and got the same result - the lines show on Outline View, but not in Preview View. I'm wondering if it is a matter of memory overload, but the Ram should be plenty, and I do not get a "Not enough memory" error message. What is the connection to Nvidia?

Jonathan - unrelated files are fine and do not have the same problem. New files created after that one behave normally.

Thanks for getting back to me! I appreciate all the help!

[Alexander_Kogan.@adobeforums.com]

ardsley, try setting your video driver to standard VGA and running Illustrator under it. If the lines don't disappear - that's nVidia. Do you have their Desktop Manager activated? Do you have the latest driver updates for your OS?

[ardsley@adobeforums.com]

I can't really answer you questions - this a getting a bit over my head! But thanks for your input.