I have created an illustration of a box out of 3 simple shapes in Adobe Illustrator CC. They are actually 3 clipping masks that clip 3 different embedded raster textures. I then turned the whole group into a symbol. See bellow:
The three large blue rectangles correspond to the boundaries of the original raster textures. Even when they are clipped by the smaller shapes, if I hover on the symbol, all the original boundaries are shown.
Is there a way to:
Hide the boundaries of the objects outside the clipping masks? I am planning on using this object several times in the artwork (that is why it is a symbol) and it becomes very annoying to keep seeing the original boundaries every time I move the mouse over one of the many instances of the symbol.
Make the symbol alignment to be based on its registration (as opposed to be based on the boundaries of the whole art outside the clipping masks)? In this case I have aligned the symbol horizontally centred with the light blue line. Notice that, instead of using its registration (middle cross) it is using the total bounding box of all the textures outside the clipping masks to determine its middle point.
Answer
Unfortunately, this is an Illustrator default and cannot be modified. I have tried unsuccessfully many times, I can appreciate your frustration.
HOWEVER! THERE IS AN ALTERNATIVE!
You can do a bit of a work-around, where you physically trim the excess raster image outside of your clipping mask. This tutorial explains it in full detail:
Essentially you are removing all the invisible, clipped area just like when you apply a layer mask in Photoshop. This is a special technique since the clipped images are rasterized and not vector. Hope this helps!
Attribution
Source : Link , Question Author : cockypup , Answer Author : KoldBane