"Secrets" of Adobe Illustrator

Hidden among the dozens of tabs and icons of Adobe Illustrator lies hundreds if not thousands of "secrets "– things you didn't know you could or wanted to do on Adobe Illustrator. Some of these are so "secret" that they don't even have preset keyboard shortcuts. Knowing a few of these could save you the trouble of redoing entire illustrations because of simple mistakes or help you to find the perfect complimentary color. Up ahead are my 9 favorite “secret” functions on Adobe Illustrator.

Smooth Tool

An alternative to the delete anchor point tool is the smooth tool. The smooth tool is exactly what it sounds like – it's smooths parts out. This is kind of like an automatic version of the delete point tool. This is kind of a trade off. On one hand you have much less control over what the result will be; but on the other, the computer does do a pretty good job at simply simplifying things that could have a lot of unnecessary points. For one of the illustrations in Princess Pretend and The Not Knight, the bottom of Princess Pretend’s crown originally had upwards of 30 anchors points for the bottom of the crown (for reference, this is a straight line). I used the smooth tool to bring this down to around two.

To use the smooth tool:

1. Select the path you want to smooth out with the direct select tool.

2. Move the smooth tool like a brush over what you want the computer to simplify.

3. Repeat step two until you get your desired result.

This tool has no preset keyboard shortcut, to access this tool use the keyboard shortcut “b”.

Group

Let's say you have a sort of complicated drawing at the bottom half of your artboard but you realize it needs to be on the top half instead. You don't want to disturb the other illustrations on the page but you also don't want to undo the drawing – what do you do? Thankfully Adobe Illustrator has a grouping feature. The grouping feature connects strokes together so they can all be selected as one object. This comes in handy when you have to move a drawing to a different place on the artboard; or copy and paste it in a different one.

How to group:

1. First use the direct select tool to click and drag over the strokes you want to connect.

2. Right-click and select "group". (To ungroup follow steps 1 and 2 only select “ungroup”).

You won’t see an immediate change, but if you click off of the selected strokes and then click one of them with the select tool it will select all the strokes you just grouped together as one object. After the fact, if you want to select just one of the strokes again you can still do this using the direct select tool.

Transparency Grid

The all-white artboard of Adobe Illustrator is meant to mimic paper (when exporting off of Illustrator the artboard isn’t even included) which works for 99.9% of the illustrations you probably do on there, however, there is one color that doesn't show up very well on white – white. Now, if you are doing an illustration in white I recommend drawing in a different color first and converting it to white when finished; or making a colored shape underneath where you'll be drawing so you can actually see your paths. But, if neither of those options work for your scenario Illustrator does have a feature for you- the transparency grid. The transparency grid is a checkerboard of white and light gray squares that you can switch your artboard to.

To turn on the transparency grid:

1. Go to the view tab.

2. Select "show transparency grid” (for reference this is about 2/3 down the drop-down menu without scrolling down).

To switch this off follow the same steps from above but select "hide transparency grid”.

Smart Guides

If you're looking for some direction on your artboard you can turn on smart guides. Smart guides let you know things like when an object is in the center of the artboard or adjacent, parallel etc. to another object. As you move an object around lots of pink lines will move from it to other parts of the artboard to get you in the precise location you're looking for. I use this mainly when working on things that need to be exact like logos or when I need to find the center on the artboard.

How to turn smart guides on/off:

1. Go to the view tab and select "smart guides” (you can also use the keyboard shortcut "ctrl+u”).

Convert color

Fair warning ahead of time; you cannot go from RGB to CMYK without most of the colors changing significantly – they're very different color modes. You should always make sure you're using the right one from the beginning; but if you use the wrong one on accident Adobe does have a feature to "fix” this (again, you can't get the same colors no matter what you do).

How to convert color mode:

1. Go to the edit tab and hover over "edit colors”.

2. Select the color mode you want to change to- either CMYK, RGB or grayscale.

Window

The window tab is probably the least self-explanatory of all the tabs in Adobe Illustrator. However, you're probably using it now without even knowing it. Basically, the window tab has all the different windows you can or do have open that can be toggled on and off. Among these are some really common panels like color and layer as well as some more obscure ones like color guide(more on that later). Virtually anything you want to be more accessible you can turn on here.

To turn a window on or off:

1. Click on the window tab.

2. Click what you want to show (when something is showing it will have a checkmark in a blue box next to it).

When you click to show something it will first appear in the center of your screen and you can choose to add it to one of the sidebars if you want.

Place

If you want to add a picture or another Adobe Illustrator document to the document you're working on you can use the place feature. The place feature adds something into your document that can be drawn on, modified etc. without editing the original.

How to place a picture/illustration:

1. Go to the file tab.

2. Select "place".

This can also be accessed with the keyboard shortcut "shift+ctrl+P"

Color Guide

In all honesty, this is an illustrator feature that should 100% be on InDesign. When I was working on the formatting for Princess Pretend and The Not Knight this was my go to to make sure all my colors worked together. Basically, the color guide creates different compatible colors schemes for whatever color you pick – and we're not talking one or two random selections, but 20+ "harmony rules”. To access this tool first add it's window (see above).

How to use the color guide:

1. Choose a color on your color wheel. This color will be set as a base color for your color guide and can be seen beginning each color scheme.

2. To the left there's a separate box that has whatever color you’ve last selected. If you click on it, it will set that as your new base color.

Add to Library

This is pretty straight forward, but if you want to save an illustration, color swatch, color theme to your library you pretty much always can.

How to add an object to your library:

1. Select it. I'd suggest grouping any ungrouped strokes together (see above) before adding to the library.

2. Right click and select add to library.

For other things you want to add there's usually an icon in the window that you can click; for color it's under swatches. If you have more than one library whichever one you're adding too is the one you have selected in the libraries panel- so make sure you have the right one selected beforehand. Keep in mind anything in your library can be deleted, duplicated or edited anytime- even if the original no longer exist (right click to access these things).

Once you’ve gotten acquainted with Adobe Illustrator, learned how to draw on it and learned dozens and dozens of keyboard shortcuts; picking up some “secrets” can refine your skills and save you from lots of extra, unnecessary work down the line.

Thanks for reading, I hope this post has helped you learn some new things! Make sure to check back every Sunday for a new post!

Tried one of these tips? Have another one to add? Feel free to contact us or leave it in the comments below!