Adobe Illustrator CS6 Part G

This is the 7th installment in my blog post series on Adobe Illustrator CS6 based on what I learn doing the video training course by Infinite Skills on this software. In this post we are mostly looking at the pathfinder tools which let us do things like merge several shapes into one or subtract one shape from another. The pathfinder tools are brought up by clicking window/ pathfinder. If you use the merge tool on several shapes the same colour it merges them into one shape but if they are several colours it slices them into separate shapes. The crop tool in pathfinder subtracts one shape from another, normally the top selected shape. The minus back tool takes the back shape from the top shape. Unite merges several shapes into one shape. The minus tool removes the selected shapes from an unselected shape. The intersect tool removes everything but where 2 shapes intersect. The exclude tool removes colour where shapes intersect and does the opposite where they don't intersect. It's quite useful for doing logos especially with text. The shape builder tool combines merging shapes into one with subtracting from one another. If you press alt + left mouse click it removes a selected item. There is a symbol sprayer with in the main toolbar that you can select a symbol with in the panels on the right of your display and then print a symbol each time you left click. The left and right bracket keys adjust the size of the symbols with left decreasing and right increasing. There is a symbol spinner tool on the symbol toolbar that rotates the symbol as you print it and a symbol screener tool that lets you adjust the symbols opacity. There is an extensive symbol library with in Illustrator with may be a thousand symbol in total and you can store a symbol in the panel by simply clicking and dragging it there. You can also drag a symbol from the panel to the workspace where it will be printed.