Transcript:
In this tutorial? I’ll show you how you can convert lines. Whether you’re starting with a line, an arc or spiral, you can convert any line to an actual shape. Now, when I go to wire view or outline mode with command or control Y you can see that. This is no longer a line but rather an entire shape. But if you’d like to convert your lines into a shape so that you can use that shape to create other shapes with the Pathfinder tool, This is how you can begin but first. How would you like a free cheat sheet? I thought so header the graphics. Go back home to get your free illustrator. Cheat sheet. That will show you all the shortcuts in the program. Just click the link below. Hello, creative. It’s your graphics girl. If graphics girl calm that’s graphics with pH and deaths girl with no eye and 3 Rs. And I’m here with a quick tip to help you design your brand quick tip if you press and hold down the line segment tool, you can see that you can create lines, arcs or spirals, so you would just choose that tool and then making sure that you have a stroke and not a fill You would click down and drag out when you hold the arc, you click down and drag out. If you add in your shift key, it will constrain that to a 45 degree angle and same thing for basic lines. If you were to click holding the shift key, it would make it perfectly horizontal perfectly straight or clicking down and going to the diagonal holding in the shift. Key makes it perfectly 45 degree angles, so I’ll go ahead and just start with a basic line here zooming in with my zoom tool, you can see that. This line has a flat edge and when I go into outline why our view with Commander control why you can see that it is still just a line as I zoom in. You can see it kind of. Looks like it’s a rectangle. How you know it’s not a rectangle from a line if I were to make an actual rectangle clicking down and dragging out why they look almost identical, but when you look in wire or outline view, you can see. One is a line so going back and forth between outline and preview with Commander Control. Y is helpful to know whether you are dealing with a line or an actual shape, but if you’d like to convert your lines into a shape so that you can use that shape to create other shapes with the Pathfinder tool, This is how you can begin, so lets. Start with this basic line if I were to come to my stroke panel by coming to window stroke. You can see that you can not only change the weight of a line, but you can change how the end of the line appears here. I’ll cap it with a rounded edge. We were here and now it looks like that. So if I like this Halfmoon arc shape that I’ve created here and I wanted to use this as a shape to help me create other shapes why I could convert this line into a shape so that I could take advantage of this curvature. So here’s how you do it selecting that line that you’ve capped with a curve so selecting that line by clicking into the white area and rolling over the line. You can come to the object menu, then path outline stroke. This will outline your stroke to make it a shape now when I go to wire view or outline mode with command or control Y you can see that. This is no longer a line, but rather an entire shape. So once again, the process was to create a line if I make a very short line here with a fairly thick weight on it 15 I change that cap to be rounded now when I’m in wire view or outline mode with Commander Control, Y-you can see that that is in fact a line. Well, when I come to object path outline stroke, it will convert that line into a shape and my point is that you could use this shape to create other shapes such as now if I were to choose my rectangle tool, go ahead and fill it with black and put a square behind this shape, selecting this shape now and choosing command shift left bracket would send it to back. I could select both of these shapes by going into the white and rolling over into both coming to my align panel that you can show by window a line and making it horizontally centered now. This shape is in the dead horizontal center of this shape. If I look at it in Y review once again with Commander Control Y you can see that there are centers aligned now we’re going to use our Pathfinder tool by selecting both shapes. You’re going to come to your Pathfinder tool that you can show by coming to window Pathfinder, and it’s right here that you could subtract the front from the back, so in this way, you could make an archway when you have a line. You can come to your stroke’s panel and change the cap or end of that line and then under path outline that stroke or line to make it a shape. What you do with this shape is up to you. You could fill it. Put it a pattern in it or use the Pathfinder tool to combine and divide shapes to create new shapes in Illustrator. If you found this video helpful, give it a like, share it with your friends and please subscribe to my channel and don’t forget for free marketing, branding and design resources head over to graphics girl. Calm, that’s graphics with pH and deaths girl with no eye and 3 Rs. And I’m here to help you design your brand [Music].