Hi, this is Anne with Graphic Design How To, and today we're going to talk about how to
align anchor points in Adobe Illustrator CC.
So there are a few different ways to do this.
If you only want to align a few points, your best bet is to use Snap to Points.
So we'll go over how to use that.
And then, if you want to align a lot of points, you're going to want to use the Align palette.
And finally, we're going to use the Average command, which is a very easy way to do it.
So stick around for that.
Alright, let's get started.
OK, so I've got this image that I downloaded from vecteezy.com, and it actually was built
without problems.
So I had to kind of create some problems here.
When we get really close in here, you can see that these aren't lined up, and I'm sure
you've come across logos before and things like this where, you know, you have to go
and line things up yourself.
First I want to kind of nip this problem in the bud by letting you know that if you're
creating a vector, you should always have View>Snap to Point on.
And this helps you to avoid this problem from the get go.
So if you're creating this, and you've created this shape, if you are on your A Tool, which
is the Direct Selection Tool, and you click this, and you pull it right up here.
And you can see where that cursor changes to white, and that means you are right on
that other point.
And if you let go at that point, it'll be exactly where that other point is.
And that is really super helpful.
So I'm going to do the same with this one.
And as you can see, as we get close to that point, it'll change color and kind of make
a double square there.
And I'll release and, now if we hit CMD Y, you can see that those points meet exactly
in that spot.
That is one way of solving the problem.
It also helps as you're creating the graphic to get right onto that point, and then you
wouldn't have this problem to begin with.
Let me undo, and I'll show you another way to get this same problem solved.
I'm going to zoom out a little bit (CMD minus), and then we'll use our A Tool again.
I'm going to draw a box around these points.
And so you see all the ones that are blue are selected right now.
Now if we zoom out a little bit and come down here, you can see these points are white,
so they're not selected, and they're not going to be affected when we do this.
OK, so let's pull up our Align palette.
You can do that by hitting SHIFT F7.
And now we'll just align these vertically and horizontally.
If we hit CMD Y, again, you can see that those are exactly lined up, hit CMD Y to escape.
So that is another way to do it.
And then the final way, and the really fast way is to use your Q Tool to just draw around
the points you want.
And then hit OPT CMD J. Now that is CTRL ALT J on a PC.
And now we can just choose both.
If you want them to line up horizontally only, then you could choose this, or vertically,
obviously.
But we'll just do Both, and it'll take the average and put them all in one place.
So that is the least amount of clicks.
It's a super quick way of doing it.
So another thing that you can do with this...if you wanted to create some rectangles...
I hit M on my keyboard, and I'll just draw a rectangle.
I'm going to hit V, hold SHIFT and OPT, and just make a copy.
OPT makes a copy, and then SHIFT will keep it on the same plane.
And now we'll hit CMD D to create a lot of these.
Just so we have some color variations, I'm going to select every other one and hit O,
return.
That'll bring up my Reflect dialog box and we'll do a Vertical reflect.
So now we have some variation there.
And now I'm going to hit A, draw a box around all these points.
And we'll do OPT CMD J, or CTRL ALT J on a PC, and we will average these.
And then it aligns all those points in the exact same location, and it's exactly halfway
from where they were.
Now you'll get the same result exactly if you come over here to the Align palette and
click this and this.
So those are three ways to align points in Adobe Illustrator CC.
OK, that's my video for this week.
If you liked this video, please click the 'Like' button, and I'll see you next week
for another graphic design tutorial.
Thank you!!!