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Tutorials on Adobe Illustrator CS5 tools

The new Adobe Illustrator CS5 has many features included. Out of which some prove to be very important design tools. Below we are going to discuss some of them.

Shape Builder Tool

To the left side of the Ilustrator window, in the tools menu is present the Shape Builder Tool. With the help of this tool , we can make various shapes and then use them as and when we want them. This saves the effort of making a particular shape every time and then using it.

Step1:

Create the parts and shapes you want to concatenate into a single shape.

Step2:

Select all the shapes/parts and then from the Tools menu select the Shape Builder tool. With the tool selected, move the pointer through the shapes/parts which you want to include in a single shape. After you are done, the result you obtain will be a single shape including all the parts/shapes you had selected.

Step3:
This single shape/ figure can now be used directly. Incase, you want to save this image for future use, You can always save it with all the other Symbols by simply dragging it and dropping it to the symbols box. Once you drag and drop it, a dialogue will appear asking for the name and type of the object. To know more details about saving symbols, you can go through our Tutorial on Symbols.

Once you enter the name and type, the symbol will be saved in the dialogue box, and the same will appear along with all the other already present symbols.
In this way, with the help of Shape builder tool we can make a variety of shapes and save a lot of time.

2. Width Tool

Another Tool present in the tools menu along with all the others is the Width tool. As the name suggests, it adjusts the width of the stroke. Lets learn how to use this tool.

Step1:
Start by using your normal Pen Tool and make some lines be it curved, straight or whatever.

Step2:
Now let’s select our Variable Width Stroke Tool. If you hover over your line/curves with this tool – you’ll see that it gives you a little dot on the line. This lets you know that it is ready to reflect on the particular line, and it also lets you know where on the line you’ll be adding (or subtracting) width from your stroke. These points are refered to as Width Points.

Step3:
So, with the tool selected, click and drag your mouse. You will notice that the width of your line suddenly grows to the point that you have selected.

Step4:
This is how you can create and control specific points on your line and the weight of all the lines as well. The thing to notice here is that in every line/ curve you draw will have points acting as width points. This will include the nodes also. This way you can easily control the width of the shapes you draw, instead of actually drawing each and every shape separately.