Illustrator Drawing Shortcuts

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Adobe Illustrator Keyboard Shortcuts for Drawing

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Right: #
Wrong: #
# Right & # Wrong of #

Constrain a shape’s proportions or orientation to equal height and width for rectangles, rounded rectangles, ellipses, and grids

Shift-drag

Move a shape while drawing it

spacebar-drag

Draw from the center of a shape (except for polygons, stars, and flares)

Option-drag

Increase or decrease polygon sides, star points, arc angle, spiral winds, or flare rays

Start dragging, then press the Up Arrow or Down Arrow

Keep the inner radius of a star constant

Start dragging, then hold down Command

Keep the sides of a star straight

Option-drag

Switch between an open and closed arc

Start dragging, then hold down C

Flip an arc, keeping the reference point constant

Start dragging, then hold down SF

Add or subtract winds from a spiral while increasing the length of the spiral

Start dragging then Option-drag

Change the decay rate of a spiral

Start dragging then Command-drag

Add or remove horizontal lines from a rectangular grid or concentric lines from a polar grid

Start dragging, then press the Up Arrow or Down Arrow

Add or remove vertical lines from a rectangular grid or radial lines from a polar grid

Start dragging, then press the Right Arrow or Left Arrow

Decrease the skew value for horizontal dividers in a rectangular grid or radial dividers in a polar grid by 10%

Start dragging, then press F

Increase the skew value for horizontal dividers in a rectangular grid or radial dividers in a polar grid by 10%

Start dragging, then press V

Decrease the skew value for vertical dividers in a rectangular grid or concentric dividers in a polar grid by 10%

Start dragging, then press X

Increase the skew value for vertical dividers in a rectangular grid or concentric dividers in a polar grid by 10%

Start dragging, then press C

Create and expand a Live Trace object in one step

Option-click Live Trace in the Control panel, or hold down Option and select a tracing preset.

Increase size of Blob Brush

] (right square bracket)

Decrease size of Blob Brush

[ (left square bracket)

Constrain Blob Brush path horizontally or vertically

Shift

Switch through drawing modes

Shift+D

Join two or more paths

Select the paths, then press Command+J

Create corner or smooth join

Select the anchor point, then press Shift+Command+Option+j