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- In this movie, we'll
take a look at line weight,

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which determines the
thickness of a stroke.

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Now, notice down here I have a series of

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hand drawn characters that are

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based on these letters at
the top of the document,

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which are set in a font
called Adobe Caslon Pro.

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Now, if you don't have that font

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and you end up getting a font warning when

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you open this document,
don't worry about it,

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it's not going to affect
your experience at all.

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Now, notice that each
one of these letters that

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requires more than one path outline,

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such as the a and the b, and so forth,

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are created as compound paths.

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And, you can see that's the case by

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the appearance of the words Compound Path

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up here in the control panel.

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And, the reason compound
paths are so useful, is that

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they assure uniformity across
fill and stroke attributes.

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So, for example, take a
look at the four paths that

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currently make up this letter g,

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they're all filled and
stroked differently.

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But, if I go ahead and partially
marquee those paths with

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the black arrow tool in
order to select them,

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and then I go up to the Object menu,

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choose Compound Path,
and then choose Make,

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Illustrator is going to
adopt the fill and stroke

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attributes of the rear-most shape,

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which is this ellipse at the top of the g.

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And, as a result, we
end up with one set of

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fill and stroke attributes,

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which is why compound
paths are routinely used in

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the creation of text, whether
hand drawn or otherwise.

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All right, now, I'm goint to go ahead

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and marquee these letters
to select all of them.

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Then notice up here in the control panel,

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this value right next to the word Stroke,

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that's the line weight.

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Now, you should know,

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Adobe calls this value the stroke weight,

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but they are, by far, in
the minority in that regard.

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This attribute has been with us since the

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days of traditional paste-up,
which go back decades before

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Illustrator ever appeared on the market.

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And, it has been called line weight

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literally for generations.

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But whatever you decide to call it,

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it affects the thickness of the stroke.

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There's a few different ways
to change the line weight.

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One is to click on this up arrow icon,

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which is going to
incrementally increase the

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thickness of the stroke.

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You can also just click
inside the line weight value

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and press the up arrow key,

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or you can even press and
hold that key if you like.

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You can also press the
down arrow key in order to

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incrementally reduce the
thickness of the strokes.

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If you want to increase or
reduce the line weight in

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larger increments then you can press shift

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along with an arrow key,

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either the up arrow key, in this case,

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or the down arrow key.

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Another way to work is to
enter your own custom value.

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For example, if I enter 15.33
and then press the enter key,

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or the return key on the Mac,

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then you can see that the
line weight is accurate to

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1/100th of a point.

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Finally, you can select a preset by

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clicking on this down pointing arrowhead

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and choosing anything
from 0.25 pts onward.

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Notice, if I go ahead and
choose this first option,

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I'm going to have to zoom way in

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in order to see these strokes.

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And, I'm also going to have to

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hide these points and segments by

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going up to the View menu
and choosing Hide Edges,

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or you can press that
keyboard shortcut of ctrl + h

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here on the PC or cmd + h on the Mac.

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Now notice, that even though we are

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no longer seeing the
points and the segments,

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that these letters remain selected.

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All right, I'll go
ahead and press ctrl + z

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or cmd + z on the Mac, to undo that move,

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so that we can just take a look at

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these line weights for a moment.

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Now, notice that I am zoomed
in all the way to 400%

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and yet the lines are only
taking up one pixel on screen.

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That's because a quarter
point line weight is

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1/4 of 1/72 of an inch, which is to say

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1/288th of an inch
thick, which is about the

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thinnest line that an
output device can render.

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Which is why this line weight
is known as a hairline.

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Another very thin and
common line weight is

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0.5 pts, that is to say, half a point.

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Which is a little more likely to

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survive the printing process.

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But, I want some big, thick strokes.

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So, I'm going to go ahead

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and click this down pointing
arrow head once again

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and then choose 20 pts from the menu.

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At which point we will end up with

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these strokes right here.

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Now I'll go ahead and bring
back my points and segments by

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pressing ctrl + h or cmd + h,

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and now I'll press ctrl
+ 0 or cmd + 0 on the Mac

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to zoom out.

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And then, finally, I'm going to change the

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color of these strokes by clicking on the

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second swatch up here
in the control panel.

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Then I'll select this preset purple,

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which is R102, G45, and B145,

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in order to produce this effect here.

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Now, I'll press the escape key
in order to hide that panel.

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That is how you adjust the

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most fundamental element of strokes,

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which is the line weight,

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here inside Illustrator.