How to Create Fills or Swatches in Illustrator

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By eHow Contributing Writer

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You can create your own patterns to use as fills or swatches for Adobe Illustrator. These instructions apply to Adobe Illustrator 8. Procedures for other versions may vary.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

Adobe Illustrator

Step 1

Create an object that you want to use for the pattern.
Step 2

Choose Show Swatches from the Window menu. The Swatches palette appears.
Step 3

Select either the Swatches or Brushes.
Step 4

Select the object that is to be used for the pattern, and drag it to the Swatches palette. A pop-up window appears.
Step 5

Customize your pattern as described.
Step 6

To fill an object, create an object using one of the drawing tools.
Step 7

Select the object with the Selection tool.
Step 8

Drag the brush or swatch into the selected object. Your object fills with the pattern that you created.

Tips & Warnings

You can also create a pattern by choosing Define Pattern from the Edit menu.
You cannot use bitmaps, placed files, gradient meshes, gradients, blends, brushstrokes or masks to create a pattern.

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