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- [Voiceover] In this movie,
I'll show you another way

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to join open path outlines in Illustrator.

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And that's to use the Join tool.

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And along the way, we're
going to take this collection

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of straight lines that I drew

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using the standard line segment tool,

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and we're going to turn
them into this white arrow.

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Now the thing about the Join command

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is that it typically works best

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when all of the endpoints
line up with each other,

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as was the case with the
spiral in the previous movie.

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And so here, for example,

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we have a bunch of half-circles up here

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at the top of the document

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whose endpoints exactly
align with the circles

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at the bottom of the document.

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But that's not the case
with these straight lines.

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And so, any time that the endpoints

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don't exactly align with each other,

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then the Join command
is going to connect them

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with straight segments.

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And to demonstrate what that looks like,

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I'll just go ahead and press Control + A

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or Command + A on the Mac

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in order to select everything
inside this document.

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And then I'll go up to the Object menu,

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choose Path and then choose Join.

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And you can see that we now have

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these little straight segments

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between what were formerly endpoints,

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which, of course, is not what we want.

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And so if you run into
a scenario like that,

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your better option is
to use the join tool.

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So I'll go ahead and press Control + Z

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or Command + Z on the Mac
to undo the Join command.

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And then I'll click and
hold on the pencil tool,

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midway down the toolbox.

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Or if you're working in
the most recent version

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of Illustrator, you may need to click

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and hold on the Shaper Tool instead.

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Either way, you can select the Join Tool

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from the bottom of this flyout menu.

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And now notice, if I just go ahead

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and drag over these segments right there,

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that will go ahead and get rid of them

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and fuse that area right there

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into a single path outline.

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Alright, now I'm going to go ahead

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and drag across these two points

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that don't even overlap each other.

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Notice that.

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But they're sufficiently close

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that Illustrator figures
out exactly what to do.

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Alright, now I'll press Control + A

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or Command + A on the Mac again

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to select my remaining path outlines.

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And I'll just go ahead and drag

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over the top of the arrow.

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And once again, it works out beautifully.

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And now, I just want to
select the top of the arrow,

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not its stem.

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So in other words, I need
to deselect what's selected

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and select what's not selected.

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And if you ever run into that situation,

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all you have to do is
go up to the Select menu

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and choose Inverse.

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And that will go ahead
and reverse the selection.

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Alright, now I'm going to drag
over this area right there

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to fuse it, and we end
up with an arrowhead.

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The next step is to press
the V key to switch back

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to the black arrow tool and
click on this stem right there.

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And then I want you to change
the line weight to 60 points

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so that we have a nice thick stroke.

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And now we want to convert that stroke

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to a path outline.

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And you do that by going
to the Object menu,

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back down to the Path submenu,

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and you choose this guy right here,

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Outline Stroke, which
will draw a path outline

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around that stroke.

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And now, if you press Shift + X

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in order to swap the fill
and stroke attributes,

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then you'll end up with this
black stroke and no fill.

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After which point, I'll
take the line weight value

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back up to four points.

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Alright, now you want to press the A key

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in order to switch to
the white arrow tool.

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And then click off the
path to deselect it.

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And then, just click on
its top segment right there

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to select it independently
of the anchor points

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and press the Backspace key

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or the Delete key on the Mac

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to get rid of it.

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Now I want you to click
on this point right there,

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and we want to cut the
path at that location

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by going up to this little
scissors icon up here

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in the Control panel and clicking on it.

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And now we have two anchor points

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at that location which I can confirm

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by clicking off them and then dragging one

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around like so.

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Alright, I don't want it up there though,

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so I'll press Control + Z

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or Command + Z on the Mac

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to undo that change.

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And I'll press Control + A

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or Command + A on the Mac

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in order to select all my path outlines.

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And now I'll switch back to
my Join tool right there,

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and I'll just go ahead
and drag over those guys.

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I can drag over these guys

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in order to finish off the project.

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So you never know.

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Sometimes you need to
select the path outlines.

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Other times you don't.

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Alright, now I'm going to press the V key

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in order to switch back
to the black arrow tool.

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And I'll select my fused arrow.

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And I'll go ahead and take the line weight

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up to 10 points like so.

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And then I'll click off the path outline

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in order to deselect it.

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And that's how you use the Join tool

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to join a bunch of open paths

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that are not aligned with each other

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in order to create a custom shape

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here inside Illustrator.