Expert: Amy - 10/27/2003

Question
Hello,
I am using Adobe Illustrator 9.0 for Windows 2000.  For the following picture http://attila.stevens-tech.edu/~ymalik/homework6.ai I want to fill alternating tiles with a black color.  But there is no bucket tool, and I can't select one rectoid.  How do I fill one rectoid?
Thanks,
Yasir

Answer
Hi Yasir.

You can't.

You have to first create closed polygons where you want your fills to be.

I've been playing with your drawing and I think the easiest way to accomplish this is to select everything on the page and Lock it (Ctrl+2).  Then using the pen tool, trace the four-sided shapes you want to eventually fill, making sure that each is completely closed (first point drawn ends at last point drawn).  Hint: Hold down your shift key when using the pen tool to create perfectly straight lines. Then you can fill them normally, and set their stroke to none.

You can 'hide' any imperfections from your tracing job by sending the filled shapes to the back of the grid (after unlocking all)... hopefully, your grid is going to have thicker lines that will overlap the edges of your filled shapes.

Hope this helped.

Hang in there.

Amy