Removing unnecessary clipping masks, compound paths and groups 1

[Sam577]

Hi,

I often work with charts from Excel in Illustrator (CS3 on Windows XP). Are there any scripts or add-ons I can use to remove all the unnecessary clipping masks, compound paths, and groups from Excel charts pasted into Illustrator (in one step rather than manually ungrouping and deleting)?

Or perhaps there is a way of importing cleaner Excel charts (but ideally would like a really quick way of removing the extras)?

Many thanks,
Sam

 

[eugenetyson]

You could try exporting the Excel file as a wmf and open it in illustrator.

Or if you go the way of the PDF from Excel and then open that in illustrator.

Or just copy and paste from Excel (but I think that's what you're doing already?)

What way are you doing it?

http://www.doozler.blogspot.com/

 

[Sam577]

Hi,

I'm currently pasting it directly in Excel, and have previously tried the PDF route. Haven't tried the wmf method so will give it a go -- thanks.

What I really want to know I think is whether a script could be written to achieve this, or an already available add-on, something to do it with the 'flick of a switch'?

I believe VB scripting (or perhaps VBA) and javascript work with Illustrator (but could be wrong). All I want are the actual objects rather than all the superfluous masks and groups that come in on import, without having to remove them manually.

I'm not particularly technically minded myself so this would be beyond my abilities, but could I have this type of scripting written for me by a developer do you think?

Many thanks,
Sam

 

[eugenetyson]

It's possible. In my opinion a lot of things can be done with scripts.

Maybe you should shoot an email to these guys?

http://scriptographer.org/Scripts/General+Scripts/

http://www.doozler.blogspot.com/

 

[eugenetyson]

Mmm.. seems to be a free scripting tool to download and it appears to be free.

http://scriptographer.org/Download/?download=238&license=1

http://www.doozler.blogspot.com/

 

[Sam577]

Thanks so much! I did have a look on the net but clearly your searching skills are much better than mine. Thanks again.

Sam

 

[Sam577]

Hi,

Sorry to be a pain, but I'm not sure which script it is. I downloaded the scripts and they are available correctly from within Illustrator; but having checked all the descriptions for the various scripts on the website, I can't find one that sounds right.

Do you know the name of the script you thought it was?

Many thanks,
Sam