Tutorial – Adobe Illustrator – Top 10 Killer Shortcuts for Maximum Productivity

Good’old Adobe Illustrator is the admiral ship of all vector drawing editors out there, as far as I’m concerned. However, if you are new to graphic design business, the embarrassing riches of functions and options that Illustrator offers may actually be somewhat intimidating.

I’ve been using Illustrator for over ten years now. So let me share with you some hard-earned “insider’s tips” that can make your life much easier.

1) TAB key (upper left) will make all your palettes appear and disappear. So if see no palettes at all on your screen, don’t panic. Just press the TAB key and all your palettes will appear like magic. Similarly, if you feel your screen looks too crowded with all the palettes you have open at the same time, press TAB to see only the artwork you are working on.

2) CTRL+A selects ALL the objects on ALL the UNLOCKED layers simultaneously. It is a good command to know to select all the objects and lock them in for good.

How would you do that?

3) Press CTRL+A and the CTRL+G. This last step will GROUP all the objects into one single solid drawing with no individual parts. (Just make sure noen of your layers are locked.) Then LOCK all your layers either by clicking the lock check-box next to each layer (a PADLOCK ICON will appear), or just left-clicking and dragging your cursor top-down through all the same check-boxes.

4) Press SHIFT+CTRL+G to UNGROUP a previously grouped image so that you can select its individual parts.

5) Press CTRL+T to display the text Character and Paragraph palette. This is such a great palette that I use all the time. You can select any available font and font size, and configure leading value, paragraph justification, and other settings here.

6) SHIFT+F7… what would we have done without our lovely SHIFT+F7 shortcut which instantly reveals the Transform, Align and Pathfinder palette? You gotta have this crucial palette on or at least know how to clal it to action quickly to do any vector graphics. It’s a life saver.

7) Imagine you have 100 layers (and that’s not as far fetched as you think if you are working on an ad-agency quality heavy-duty illustration). Also imagine that you would like to lock all layers EXCEPT layer #38 in order not to disturb the other layers while working on that one single layer. How would you do it?

Very simple. Click the locking check-box next to Layer #38 AFTER you press ALT. ALT+Click on the “lock check-box” locks all the layers EXCEPT the clicked layer.

8) Again, imagine you have 100 layers and you want to make 99 of them invisible and look at only Later #38 to simply the view. How would you do it?

Click the “eye check-box” next to Layer #38 AFTER you press ALT. ALT+Click on the “eye check-box” makes invisible all the layers EXCEPT the clicked layer.

9) Do you know how to add ARROWHEADS to your lines? Draw your line, and then, while the line is still selected, select the following MENU item:

Effect >Stylize > Add Arrowheads…

Or

Filter >Stylize > Add Arrowheads…

Both allow you to select one of the amazing 27 different arrowhead styles available for either or both end(s) of your line. The difference? Just academic. One makes the arrow a permanent part of the line while the other just adds a “temporary effect.” But the result are the same. Use any you option want.

10) You can make a BRUSH out of any shape you want! Just select the shape object. Then go to your Styles+Swatches+Brushes palette. (If it’s not visible, just press F5.) Make sure Brushes tab is selected. You will see a “curled page” icon at the bottom of Brushes tab to create new brushes. Click that. Select “New Art Brush” and voila! You can now paint wonderful new objects with your super-duper new art brush!