Recently while creating some filled letterings i was faced this problem of Expanding the fill properly. Patterns and swatches are so useful when you have appropriate and good ones at hand . Here is a simple method which will expand these patterns clearly and edge to edge here is an example of how swatch expanded looks like…
Obviously this is not my target , i want clean cut out lettering with my fill…!
- Go to Expand and expand Fill
- Right click and Ungroup
- Use Pathfinder "Divide" tool
Here is what i get… A clearly cut out patterned Letter.
As my aim was to create a patterened letters set i Recorded the Actions and then the game was all about press of a button!
More Vector Graphics: 
