Expression Hints & Tips

One of Expression's few weaknesses, but a very annoying one is it's path operations. You have probably found out that if you try and subtract one shape from another, unless they are both very simple shapes (rectangles) then Expression tends to add in many extra points and quite often distorts the shapes, leaving a lot of tidying up to be done. See the Yellow strip for an example.

In the past, I have sometimes resorted to using Xara to create the shape, export as an AI file and import this file into Expression. Not the most elegant solution, and you do need to have another program capable of creating the AI file.

But look at the Red strip below, this is done completely in Expression. No extra points and no distortion. How is it done?, simple once the penny dropped. In the bottom strip the circle cut-outs are set to eraser mode.

You need one extra step if you want a line around the cutout (as the line also erases). Just copy the cutout shapes (Ctrl C), paste in front (Ctrl F), then set the mode to normal, no fill and set the line of your choice.

By the way, to create the circles for the cutout, I just drew two circles space well apart and blended them to get the extra circles and grouped the whole lot together before putting them on top of the strip and setting eraser mode.

Because Expression eraser mode only works at the layer level, if you need objects to be seen through the cutout, just place them on their own layer, at a lower level (otherwise they will be cutout as well)

Hope this helps somebody, it certainly helped me.

Alan

Microsoft Expression Home Page

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I first used this program when Expression 2 LE was featured on a Computer Arts Magazine cover CD.

It is quite a brilliant program that bridges the gap between Vector and Bitmap imaging software.

Although you create your images using vector shapes and lines, you can apply bitmap effects to the vectors. These are then rendered at the best resolution when you export the file to a bitmap format.

Expression comes with a whole swag of predefined brush strokes, though it is very easy to create your own and inject your own personal style into your drawings.

I now use Expression 3, which has many terrific new features.