How to Create Pattern Filled Shapes

On the left you’ll see the arches I’ve done for another project, but we’re going to start easily in Adobe with a rectangle. I’m going to change the fill so we can see the pattern.

Next I’m going to duplicate my shape because we’re going to lose the first one here in a second.

Now I’m going to import (or in this case copy and paste) my pattern file. We’re doing a checkered print. I’m going to size it a bit bigger to fill the rectangle. I realized I didn’t scale it right so we’re going to re-do that and use the sizing tool. I believe you can also hold down shift to maintain the scale.

To create the engraving section we’re going to use the pathfinder menu and the intersect tool.

Now we’re just going to line up our original shape with that and use the align menu to make sure they’re centered and ready to go!

And last, I changed the color on the engrave- this isn’t necessary, but it may help if you are selling files.

There are numerous other ways to do this, but I really like this way so I have my file is set up perfectly for the GlowForge as we have a cut line and a separate engrave line.