In Illustrator how do you export just clipping mask interior?

Question

I have an illustration containing text and brush strokes and would like to export it as 3 files each containing what is inside one of the three green shapes. I've tried creating a clipping mask from one of the green shapes and then Export -> Export As but that still seems to export the whole illustration.

Answer 1

Assuming you work in Illustrator and want to crop out everything outside a certain path, no matter what's your export format, you can make a copy and delete from it everything outside the path. But proceed with a copy, because the extras are really deleted. An example:

The artwork maybe isn't now of the highest quality, but there's several shapes in different layers. There could as well be groups and it wouldn't make any difference.

Delete all outside the red path:

• Select all
• Click the Shape Builder tool icon to take it into use
• Hold Alt key and drag over all unwanted items

You get this:

Moving the red shape aside reveals this:

The old strokes are now on the new shape edges. If you want to hide those parts of them which were below the red line you must still add a clipping mask, but at least there's no ghost shapes hanging around like after only hiding items by inserting a clipping mask.

BTW. "Expanding" a clipping mask so that everything outside the mask really vanishes seems to be widely wanted. I would like it, too. Unfortunately clipping mask affects only the rendering of the image, it doesn't actually clip anything. I'm afraid it probably never becomes "expandable".

NOTE: The shape builder affects only paths. All effects must be expanded and texts must be outlined. If there's editable texts they will stay intact. Unexpanded effects like blends or 3D effects probably give unexpected results - the effects are applied to the new cropped shapes.

An example before the deletion with the shape builder:

And after the deletion:

Blur-type effects like the shown drop shadow or glows do not come out right even by expanding (=Object > Expand Appearance) them at first, because the expansion result is not a path, but a bitmap image. To get it right you must still finally add a clipping mask.