Illustrator why cant i erase

If you have a simple background like this, simply create a rectangle for the background and use the eyedropper tool to select the same color for the background. You can either delete the text directly or outline it and then use the Eraser Tool. If you simply want to delete a certain character, the easiest way to do it is to use the Type Tool to select and delete it directly from the live text box.

If you insist on using the Eraser Tool or trying to erase part of the text instead of an entire one, you can create a text outline first and then select the Eraser Tool to remove unwanted text areas. If you download stock vectors online, make sure you embed the image when you place them in Illustrator.

I assume you already know that locked objects cannot be edited. The same rule applies to erasing. Now you can use the Eraser Tool to erase, but the object must be a vector. The areas paths you remove, will separate the original shape but you can still edit the anchor points of the new shapes. I feel you because I thought about the same thing when I first tried to edit a symbol.

Luckily, you can make it happen with one simple action. First of all, check if the object is a symbol. If it is a symbol, lucky you, simply right-click on it and select Break Link to Symbol and you can edit it.

Using Illustrator's erasing tool does not work on text and graphics in their native, editable form. To erase parts of the text, you need to convert the text to an outline, for which the eraser tool will work. However, this is a one-way street: Once you have convert the text to an outline, it is no longer editable as text. If you need to edit the text, be sure to do it before converting it for erasure.

The eraser tool will be disabled for this kind of file. The only way is to open the original document in illustrator and use the eraser tool on the original document itself. But if a vector art is embedded into your file then you can edit that file because embedded art becomes part of the file into which it is embedded. Because the eraser tool only works on vector material. If you want to use the eraser tool on a bitmap, then first you have to open photoshop and then you have to alter the file there.

After altering the file, you can use the eraser tool on the bitmap file. You should be very careful about the extension of the file that you are opening using illustrator.

If you have any further questions please feel free to share them with us, we will be more than happy to answer all of them.