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I'm creating a brick pattern for laser cutting.
I created some lines and dragged it to the swatches
I then filled a rectangle with the brick pattern and did an Object > Expand:
This creates a clipping mask... The problem is, my laser cutter software can't see the clipping mask, so I need to convert the mask back into paths.
My question is, how can I "remove" the clipping mask (highlighted red) but keep the results (highlighted green).
This has an annoying aspect, but works....
Select the object and its mask with the Selection Tool (black arrow)
Click the Crop button on the Pathfinder Panel (Window > Pathfinder)
This will "crop" the objects to the bounds of the clipping path leaving the "results".
HOWEVER, it will also remove all the strokes. That's the annoying thing.
So, you will need to reapply the stroke, then use the Direct Selection Tool (white arrow) to click and remove unwanted portions (the edge shapes basically - unless you want a stroke around the entire thing).
A quick way I use: Use the direct select tool (the white arrow) and click on one of the clipping path's anchor points. Hit delete to delete the point. That will automatically select the rest of that clipping path's anchor points. Then hit delete again to delete the rest of the path. Any objects that were clipped will not be released from the path.
You can also select the clipping path, release the path, deselect the contents, then delete the path - but that is more steps.
