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- [Instructor] In this
movie I'll how to use

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the pen tool to create
and modify corner points.

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Which are anchor points that occur

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between straight segments.

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I'll start things off
the way I normally do,

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by going up to the File menu

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and choosing New From Template,

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or you can use that
shortcut of Control Shift N

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or Command Shift N on the Mac,

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and then I'll go ahead
and double click on my RGB

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with center guides.ait file

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in order to bring up a blank art board.

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All right, now I'll go ahead
and select the pen tool.

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Which you can get by pressing the P key,

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and if for some reason you're not seeing

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the pe tool at this location,

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then go ahead and click
and hold on whatever tool

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you are seeing and select the pen tool

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from the top of the fly out menu.

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Okay now I'm going to
change my fill and stroke

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by clicking in this first color swatch

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up here in the control panel,

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and then I'll select none,

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and next I'll go ahead and
increase the line weight value

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to six points like so.

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All right, now very likely
your pen tool cursor

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will appear black,

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but the difference is purely cosmetic.

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The way the tool works
hasn't changed one iota.

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All right now if this is your
first time using the pen tool,

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it may look a lot like the curvature tool.

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After all, the only thing we're missing

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is the little curly Q
coming off the cursor,

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but the pen works very differently.

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Now when you first select it,

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you're going to see a pen
too cursor with an asterisk.

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Which tells you that you're about to start

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a new path outline.

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Which I'm going to do
just by clicking to create

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not a smooth point as you
get with a curvature tool,

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but rather a corner point,

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and now if I move my cursor away,

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you can see two things happen.

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First we lose the asterisk.

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Which tells us that we now
have an active path outline,

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and second we see the rubber band preview.

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Which shows us what the
next segment will look like

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if we were to click at
the present location.

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All right, so I'll go ahead and click

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in order to create another corner point,

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and you can see that
Illustrator automatically

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joins the two points with
the straight segment,

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and now you can continue clicking

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to create a free form polygon.

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If you move your cursor
back to the first point

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in the path outline,

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you'll see a little circle next to it.

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Which tells you you're
about to close the path,

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and once you have, the asterisk comes back

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to tell you that if you're
going to click again,

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you're going to create
yet another path outline.

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All right, in addition to close paths,

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you can create open paths as well,

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and there are two ways to do that.

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You can either press the Escape key

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in order to turn off that path outline,

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and that will allow you
to create a new one,

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or I'll go ahead and wake
this path outline backup

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by moving my cursor over it,

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and you can see now I get a
little line next to the cursor.

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Which I call the resume cursor

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because it allows you to
resume modifying the path,

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and so notice as soon as I click

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on one of these endpoints,

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I again see my rubber band preview

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and the asterisk next to the
cursor once again disappears,

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and now I'll just go ahead
and click a couple more times,

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and now let's say once
again I'm done editing.

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The other thing you can
do is press the Enter key

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here on the PC, or the
Return key on a Mac,

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and that'll go ahead and
deactivate the path outline,

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and as you can see,

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I get the asterisk back
next to my pen tool cursor.

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Which means that if I start clicking

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over on the other side
of the document here,

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I will begin a new path outline.

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Another option that's available to you

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when you're modifying open path outlines

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is the ability to connect two open paths,

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and you can do that just
by moving your cursor

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over the endpoint of an inactive path,

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such as this one right here.

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At which point you'll
see a little anchor point

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next to the cursor.

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Which tells you that
you're about to connect

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the two path outlines, as
well as deactivate them.

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Which is why I once again have an asterisk

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next to my cursor.

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Now in addition to creating
paths with the pen tool,

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you can also modify them,

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and you do so by first
selecting the path outline.

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Which you can do by pressing
and holding the Control key,

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or the Command key on a Mac.

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Which gives you temporary access
to the last used arrow tool

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at which point you can go ahead
and click on a path outline.

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Such as this one, in order to select it.

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Then go ahead and release the Control key,

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or the Command key on the Mac,

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and now move your cursor
over an existing segment.

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At which point you'll see a
plus sign next to the cursor.

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Which tells you that if you click,

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you're going to add an
anchor point like so.

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Now let's say I want to
move the anchor point

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to a different location.

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Well if I press the Control
key or the Command key

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on the Mac and try to drag that point,

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I'm going to move the entire path outline,

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because after all, my last used arrow

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was the black arrow tool.

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So I'll go ahead and press Control Z

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or Command Z to undo that move.

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I could manually switch
back to the white arrow

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by pressing the A key,

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or I can switch between
the arrow tools on the fly

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by pressing Control ~ here on the PC,

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and as you may recall, the tilde key

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is the one in the upper left
corner of an American keyboard.

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Now on the Mac, that's not going to work.

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That's going to switch you
between open documents.

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So what you have to do instead

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is press Command Option Tab,

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and that will go ahead, in my case,

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switch me back to the black arrow tool.

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So in other words, either
Control ~ on the PC,

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or Command Option Tab on the Mac

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is going to toggle between
the black and white arrows.

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At which point I can keep
that Control key down,

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or the Command key down on the Mac,

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and then I can click on
that new corner point

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that I just created,

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and I can drag it to a new location.

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That's a pretty great
way to work, by the way.

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You just go ahead and release the key,

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hover your cursor over a segment,

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click in order to add an anchor point,

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and then Control or Command
drag it to a different location,

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and I'll go ahead and do it again here,

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and Control or Command drag
it over to this location,

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and so I can continue working
that way as much as I like.

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Now you also have the option
of deleting anchor points,

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and you do that by hovering your cursor

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over an existing point like so,

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at which time you'll see a
minus sign next to the cursor,

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and then all you have to do is click

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in order to make that
anchor point go away,

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and now I might just
Control drag or Command drag

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that point upward a little,

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and this works, by the
way, with any path outline.

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It doesn't have to have been
drawn with the pen tool.

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So for example, let's
say you want to create

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a free form triangle,

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then one way to do that is
to grab the rectangle tool.

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Which again you can get
by pressing the M key,

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and then you can just go ahead and draw

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any kind of rectangle you like.

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Then switch to the pen tool.

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Which again you can get
by pressing the P key,

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and then go ahead and click
on one of the anchor points

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to delete it, and you'll
end up with a triangle.

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You'll also see a brief message saying

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that the shape has been expanded,

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because it's no longer a
so called smart rectangle

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here inside Illustrator.

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And now I can go ahead and Control drag

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or Command drag any of the anchor points

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in any manor that I like.

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And that's how you create
and modify corner points

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just by clicking with the pen
tool here inside Illustrator.