Transcript for:
Overview of Adobe Illustrator Tools

Every Adobe Illustrator tool in under 20 minutes: The selection tool: the most fundamental Illustrator tool and the one you’ll spend the most time with. Shortcut is the letter V. Used to make selections of entire objects, groups and clipping masks, either by clicking or dragging. This tool is also used to move, scale, rotate and round corners. The direct selection tool: shortcut is the letter A. Used to select and move individual paths, anchor points and handles. It also selects individual objects inside groups or clipping masks, if they have a fill you can click on. Rounding corners is also possible. The group selection tool: no default shortcut. Used to select objects inside a group without having to ungroup them. The magic wand tool: shortcut is the letter Y. Used to select objects with similar properties, such as color and stroke. It selects any object on your document, including ones in groups and clipping masks. Options for the magic wand can be changed in the magic wand panel. The lasso tool: shortcut is the letter Q. It selects any anchor points inside the path drawn, including from objects in groups and clipping masks. The pen tool: shortcut is the letter P. Used to draw paths. Each click adds a new anchor point to the path, and dragging the mouse before releasing the click will add handles for curvature. Clicking back on the first anchor will close the path. The add anchor point tool: shortcut is the plus symbol. It adds a new anchor point to a path. The delete anchor point tool: shortcut is the minus symbol. It removes an anchor point from a path. Bonus tip: if you hold the shift key while removing the anchor point, the path will be recalculated to stay the same. The anchor point tool: shortcut is shift C. Used to add, remove or edit handles on an anchor point. Clicking on a curved anchor point removes the handles, and clicking and dragging adds them back. Dragging a handle with this tool will move it independently of the other one. The curvature tool: shortcut is shift tilde. It is similar to the pen tool, but automatically creates curved paths. The type tool: shortcut is the letter T. Click anywhere to add text. Clicking and dragging will create a textbox. Click on top of already existing text to edit it. The area type tool: no default shortcut. Click on a path to create text inside it. The type on a path tool: no default shortcut. Click on a path to create text that follows the path. The vertical type tool: no default shortcut. Click anywhere to create vertical text. The vertical area type tool: no default shortcut. Click on a path to create vertical text inside it. The vertical type on a path tool: no default shortcut. Click on a path to create a vertical text that follows the path. The touch type tool: shortcut is shift T. Works similar to the selection tool, but with individual characters on a text. Click on a character to bring up the bounding box and then, you can scale, move and rotate it. The line segment tool: shortcut is the backslash. Click and drag to create a line. The arc tool: no default shortcut. Click and drag to create an arc. The spiral tool: no default shortcut. Click and drag to create a spiral. Use the up and down arrow keys to change the number of cycles of the spiral. The rectangular grid tool: no default shortcut. Click and drag to create a rectangular grid. Use the arrow keys to change the number of columns and lines. The polar grid tool: no default shortcut. Click and drag to create a polar grid. Use the arrow keys to change the number of subdivisions. The rectangle tool: shortcut is the letter M. Click and drag to create a rectangle. Holding shift will create a perfect square. The rounded rectangle tool: no default shortcut. Click and drag to create a rounded rectangle. Holding shift will create a perfect square. Use the up or down arrow keys to change the roundness. The ellipse tool: shortcut is the letter L. Click and drag to create an ellipse. Holding shift will create a perfect circle. The polygon tool: no default shortcut. Click and drag to create a polygon with all sides the same size. Use the up or down arrow keys to change the number of sides. The star tool: no default shortcut. Click and drag to create a star. Use the up or down arrow keys to change the number of points. Hold cmd or ctrl while dragging to change the size of the arms. The flare tool: no default shortcut. Click and drag to create the light rays and the halo, then click on the desired direction to add the light rings. The objects created already have blending modes selected, so you can just place the flare on top of an image or an illustration. The paintbrush tool: shortcut is the letter B. Click and drag to create a smooth path, more like a hand drawn style. Holding alt after you start dragging the mouse will create a closed path. Press the square bracket keys to change the brush size. The blob brush tool: shortcut is shift B. Click and drag to create a filled, compound path. New paths will merge with existing ones of the same appearance if they touch each other. Press the square bracket keys to change the brush size. The shaper tool: shortcut is shift N. Click and drag to draw a rough approximation of the shape you desire, and Illustrator will automatically turn it into a crisp geometric shape. Works for straight lines, rectangles, ellipses and polygons. The pencil tool: shortcut is the letter N. Works very similarly to the paintbrush tool. Click and drag to create smooth paths. Dragging the mouse close to where you started will close the path. The smooth tool: no default shortcut. Click and drag over a selected path to make it smoother. It is also a nice way to reduce the number of anchor points. The path eraser tool: no default shortcut. Click and drag over a selected path to erase parts of it. This tool is terrible to use. The join tool: no default shortcut. Select two open paths, then click and drag to join them. The eraser tool: shortcut is shift E. Click and drag on top of a selected object to erase parts of it. Press the square bracket keys to change the eraser size. The scissors tool: shortcut is the letter C. Click on a path to split it at that specific point. The knife tool: no default shortcut. Click and drag over an object to cut it. The rotate tool: shortcut is the letter R. Click and drag to rotate the selected object. Clicking anywhere in the artboard will change the reference point of the rotation. Holding shift will lock the rotation in increments of 45 degrees. The reflect tool: shortcut is the letter O. Click and drag to reflect the selected object. This tool can be quite confusing, the easiest way to use it is to hold shift and drag observing the reference point. The scale tool: shortcut is the letter S. Click and drag to scale the selected object. Holding shift will lock the scale horizontally, vertically or proportionally, depending on the direction you drag. Clicking anywhere in your artboard will change the reference point. The shear tool: no default shortcut. Click and drag to skew the selected object. Clicking anywhere in the artboard will change the reference point and holding shift will lock the tool on the horizontal or vertical axis. The reshape tool: no default shortcut. Click and drag on a path to reshape it. This tool is clunky and can add lots of anchor points. There are better ways to reshape paths. The width tool: shortcut is shift W. Click and drag on a stroke do change its width in that specific point. The width tool adds these handles, which you can move and edit whenever you want. The warp tool: shortcut is shift R. Click and drag to deform a path in the direction you drag. The twirl tool: no default shortcut. Click and hold to twirl the object around the center of the brush. The pucker tool: no default shortcut. Click and hold to deform the path towards the center of the brush. The bloat tool: no default shortcut. Click and hold to deform the path towards the outside of the brush. It’s the opposite of the pucker tool. The scallop tool: no default shortcut. Click and hold to scallop the path towards the center of the brush. The crystalize tool: no default shortcut. Click and hold to deform the object towards the outside of the brush, creating spikes. It’s the opposite of the scallop tool. The wrinkle tool: no default shortcut. Click and hold to wrinkle the path by deforming it in a random way. The free transform tool: shortcut is the letter E. Selecting this tool with an object selected brings up a menu with 3 different options - free transform, perspective distort and free distort. With this tool you can scale, rotate, shear and add perspective to any object. The puppet warp tool: no default shortcut. Select this tool with an object selected to bring up a mesh used to distort the object. The mesh has control points which can be dragged and rotated. They can also be deleted by selecting them and pressing the delete key, or added by clicking on the mesh. This tool does not add anchor points, so it is limited to distorting only using the already existing anchors. The shape builder tool: shortcut is shift N. Click and drag through multiple paths to unite them in a single shape. Hold alt and drag to delete paths. This tool works similarly to the Pathfinder. The live paint bucket tool: shortcut is the letter M. Select multiple objects and click using the live paint bucket to create a live paint group. After that, you can click on any enclosed path to paint it with the selected color. You can also select a color palette on the swatches panel and switch between colors using the left and right arrow keys. The live paint selection tool: shortcut is shift L. Used to select fills and strokes inside a live paint group. Each individual click will select either the fill, or the stroke, and not both, like a normal selection. Hold shift the select more than one stroke or fill. The perspective grid tool: shortcut is shift P. Selecting this tool brings up the perspective grid in the artboard. The grid angles can be adjusted with the multiple control points in the grid. While the grid is active in the artboard, objects will be created within a specific side of the perspective. The side can be changed in the icon that stays in the corner of the screen while the grid is active, or using the shortcuts - numbers 1, 2, 3 and 4. To close the grid, select the perspective grid tool and click the X on the icon. You can also change the number of points of the perspective in the perspective grid menu. The perspective selection tool: shortcut is shift V. Allows you to move objects inside the perspective. Moving objects with this tool will automatically scale and distort them to stay in perspective. While moving an object you can also use the shortcuts 1, 2 or 3 to change the perspective side. The mesh tool: shortcut is the letter U. Click on a selected object to create a color mesh. Each click adds a new point to the mesh, which can be painted a different color. The gradient tool: shortcut is the letter G. Click and drag on an object that is painted with a gradient to adjust the angle and position of the gradient, as well as the position of colors and transitions. The eyedropper tool: shortcut is the letter I. With an object selected, select the eyedropper and click on another object to copy its colors. If you hold the shift key, only the stroke or fill color will be applied, depending on where you click. The eyedropper also copies transparencies, and text properties. The measure tool: no default shortcut. Click and drag to measure a distance in the artboard. The info panel will be opened. The panel shows the position of the start point, the width and height distances, the distance in a straight line and the angle of the measurement. The blend tool: shortcut is the letter W. Click on two or more objects to blend the shape and color between them. Objects are grouped after the blend is created, but can still be selected by using the direct selection tool or the group selection tool. The symbol sprayer tool: shortcut is shift S. Select a symbol in the symbols panel and spray the artboard to create multiple instances of that symbol. To create a new symbol, simply drag the desired vector inside the symbols panel. All the instances of the symbol will be grouped in what’s called a Symbol Set. The symbol shifter tool: no default shortcut. With a Symbol Set selected, click and drag to shift the symbols inside the group. The symbol scruncher tool: no default shortcut. With a Symbol Set selected, click and hold on a symbol to bring the other symbols close to it. To bring them far apart, hold the alt key before clicking. The symbol sizer tool: no default shortcut. With a Symbol Set selected, click to scale up the symbols inside the brush area. The closer a symbol is to the center of the brush, the more it’ll scale up. Holding alt while clicking makes the symbols scale down. The symbol spinner tool: no default shortcut. With a Symbol Set selected, click and drag close to the center of a symbol to spin it. The symbol stainer tool: no default shortcut. With a Symbol Set and a color selected, click on the symbols to paint them with the selected color. Proximity to the center of the brush and how long you hold the click affects how much they’ll be painted. The symbol screener tool: no default shortcut. With a Symbol Set selected, click on the symbols to make them transparent. Proximity to the center of the brush and how long you hold the click affects how transparent they’ll be. The symbol styler tool: no default shortcut. With a Symbol Set and a graphic style selected, click on the symbols to apply the style on them. Proximity to the center of the brush and how long you hold the click affects how strong the style will be applied. The graph tools: all the graph tools work the same way, so I’m going to explain them all together. Shortcut for the first graph tool, the column graph tool, is letter J. Click and drag anywhere in the artboard to create a graph with the desired size. A spreadsheet will appear where you can input the data that will be shown in the graph. You can also import data externally. The artboard tool: shortcut is shift O. Allows you to create, move, copy and edit artboards in your document. The slice tool: shortcut is shift K. Click and drag on the artboard to create a rectangular slice. The artboard will be split into several chunks, which you can export separately using the Save for Web menu option. The slice selection tool: no default shortcut. Allows you to select, move and resize slices. The hand tool: shortcut is the letter H. Click and drag to move across the artboard. You can also access the hand tool in a quicker way by either holding space then clicking and dragging, or clicking and dragging using the mouse wheel. In both ways, you’ll return to the previously used tool once you release the mouse click. The rotate view tool: shortcut is shift H. Click and drag to rotate the view in Illustrator. Holding shift will lock the rotation in increments of 15 degrees. The print tiling tool: no default shortcut. Selecting this tool automatically turns on the visibility of printing tiles. By default, you will only have one tile in your artboard. To actually tile your document for printing, you have to open the Print menu and on the Scaling drop down menu select “Tile full pages” or “Tile imageable areas”. This will tile your document in the selected media size. Hit done. Now you will have multiple tiles, which you can reposition using the print tiling tool. The zoom tool: shortcut is the letter Z. Click to zoom in. Hold alt and click to zoom out. Clicking and dragging sideways smoothly zooms in and out. And those were all 87 Adobe Illustrator tools. Many tools explained in this video have other features and functionalities besides the ones shown but it would be impossible to explain everything in a single video. Also, virtually every tool will change its behavior when you hold shift, alt or ctrl/cmd keys, so experiment with all of them. A lot of tools will also open up customization menus when you hit the enter key with the tool selected, so experiment with that as well. This is the end of this video. I hope you learned something new. Thank you for watching and have a great day. Bye!