Adobe Illustrator CS6 Part E

This is the 5th installment in my blog post series on Adobe Illustrator CS6 which is based on what I learn from the video training course by Infinite Skills on this software. This post is mostly on shapes, strokes and fills. There is a rectangle tool which if you press shift at the same time changes to a square. If you press alt at the same time as rectangle it moves outwards as you drag it with the mouse. If you click control it gives you the selection tool temporarily whilst using the shape tool and this is particularly useful if you are duplicating it. Regardless what shape or stroke tool you are using these keys will tend to work in a similar fashion. Sometimes though when it isn't applicable to a certain shape or stroke nothing will happen. Pressing the spacebar at the same time holds the shape and lets you move it around. If you click on the workspace it brings up a properties box for the shape you are working on. It will typically let you configure how many lines or what radius is displayed. If you select shift and a line it will set it to 45 degree increments. In the strokes palette there is a line, arc, spiral, grid and polar tools. Polar is a bit like a spiders web. If you go in the shapes palette there is a rectangle, rounded rectangle, hexagon, star and a rather strange tool that can do reflections in things. In the properties box where there is a dimension displayed you can add + or - to the right of cm to add or subtract a dimension or add & or / to add something in proportion to the shape. Control + a will select all. You will often fill a shape to simplify selection. If it's not filled you can only select strokes and can't select inside a shape. Click x to toggle between stroke and fill. Object/ expand appearance lets you expand any part of a shape and will separate the shape into various components depending on the shape. When you save stuff in Illustrator you have the option of saving into a file type that is compatible with an earlier version of Illustrator but bear in mind it might not support all the features or all the things you have done to your drawing. Your picture might end up radically different.