You can draw a path using any combination of corner and smooth points. At a smooth point, however, path segments are connected as a continuous curve. Paths can have two kinds of anchor points”corner points” and “smooth points.” At a corner point,”a path abruptly changes direction. For an open path, the starting and ending anchor points for the path are called its “endpoints.” You change the overall shape of a path by editing its anchor points, and control a curve by dragging the “direction points” at the end of the “direction lines” that appear at anchor points.Ī path is either open, like an arc, or closed, like a circle. About PathsĪ path is made up of one or more straight or curved “segments.” The beginnings and ends of each segment are marked by “anchor points,” which work like pins holding a wire in place. (The following information was obtained from the Illustrator online help). Before you can understand the Pen tool, you need to know what that line is: a path.

Notice if you click and drag immediately, all it seems to do is make a straight line with dots at each end. It does not draw wherever you drag, like the Paintbrush or Pencil tools. It allows the artist to create shapes with freeform curves, and with time and skill, most curves found in the “real world” can be duplicated using the Pen tool.īefore you start using the Pen tool, there are some things to note in that it doesn’t work the way you think it would. The Pen tool is probably the most powerful tool in Adobe Illustrator.

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Adobe illustrator with a mouse