Easy Editing of Paste Insides using Lens Fills

Ever since FreeHand 7, you can edit paste-in fills by clicking in the contents. This works fine but is sometimes frustrating to work with, like adding peices to a subgroup of elements within the shape. Sometimes you'd have to cut the contents just to play around with some of the elements anyways. The tip below describes how to easily create paste-in fills with the Lens fill, and you can easily edit the objects within.

Version: 8 and above

For this example I'm choosing something simple to illustrate the concept. First I create the shape to paste in an object. Here it's the K outline. Next, I place the object to be pasted inside in the approximate spot I want it, here it's the eye bitmap.

Next I drag both of the elements off of the document and on to the Pasteboard.

Now I select the element to paste the objects into and give it a Lens fill. Make any percentage values 0 so it turns off the effect. Next click on the Centerpoint option. This makes a little clover bullet on the image to show you the center point. Don't turn on Snapshot, this removes the link between the center point and the objects to be pasted in.

Now you can move the shape with the Lens fill back on to the document and, as you can see, the objects are virtually pasted in. Wherever you move the shape, the paste-ins goes with it.

What you've done is created a link between the Lens filled object and whatever was underneath it at the time of turning on the Centerpoint option. This allows you to make any changes to the objects on the pasteboard without having to cut or paste inside the element again. Here I've added a couple of circles over the bitmap image, and they show up in the Lens Fill automatically.

Special Note If you don't see any immediate results when adding or changing the objects on the pasteboard, just select the Lens filled object and Bring to Front. It won't see anything that was drawn above the object. It's best to keep these objects on the same layer if possible.

So that's it. Pretty neat huh? You can make all kinds of effects with the Lens fill/Centerpoint combo. Just remember, that the more Lens fills you use, the bigger the EPS file is created and the wait time for printing will be extended.