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- In this movie, we'll
take a look at three more

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elements of strokes inside Illustrator:

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Caps, Joins and Miter Limit.

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And, they all hinge on that
notion that Illustrator

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is less concerned about
the total line weight,

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and more concerned about the two halves

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of the line weight on either
side of the Path Outline.

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In our case, notice that
I have a straight line,

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with two end points,

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and my line weight is set to 200 points.

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So, in other words we have
100 points of line weight

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on the top side of the
path and another 100 points

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of line weight below the path.

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Now, I'll go ahead and
click on the word Stroke,

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up here in the Control Panel,
and notice our Cap options

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right here; these three
options effect the appearance

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of the Stroke at an end point.

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They only effect open path outlines.

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By default, the Butt Cap is selected,

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which means that the stroke
ends abruptly at the end point.

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You have two other options

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that are available to you as well;

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you've got the Round Cap
that's going to go ahead

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and wrap the stroke around the end point,

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in a round fashion as
we're seeing right here.

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What we essentially have, is a circle here

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at the end point, with
a radius that's equal to

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half of the line weight, so
in other words, 100 points.

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What happens is the stroke
extends in this case,

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100 points beyond the end
point in either direction.

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You're other option is a Projecting Cap,

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which goes ahead and draws a
square from that end point.

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Again, it extends outward,
half the line weight,

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or in our case, 100 points
from either end point.

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Once again bear in mind,
that the Cap Option

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only effects open paths;

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it has no effect on closed path outlines.

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I'm going to go ahead
and turn this layer off,

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and turn the next layer angle on.

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I'll go ahead and click on
its path outline to select it.

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The next row of options,
control the joins.

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The joins effect the appearance

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of corners in a path outline.

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If your path doesn't have any corners,

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as in the case of a circle,
then you won't see any effect.

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I'll once again click on the word Stroke,

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up here in the Control Panel,

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and notice these corner
options right here,

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they do indeed control
the appearance of corners

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in the path outlines,
but each of the icons

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themselves, are labeled Join.

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By default, we have a Miter Join,

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meaning that the stroke
extends all the way

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out until it meets its other side,

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and you end up with a sharp corner.

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Your other options are a Round Join,

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in which case Illustrator goes ahead

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and wraps half the line weight
around that corner point

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as we're seeing right here.

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Again, we now have a corner
that's made up of a circle,

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with a radius of half the line weight,

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which in our case, is again, 100 points;

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or you can switch to a
Bevel Join which is going to

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go ahead and slice off that corner.

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You may wonder, why
Illustrator weights just

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a little bit farther
out than a corner point,

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in order to do the slicing.

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That's explained by this
Imposition Layer right here.

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I'll go ahead and turn
it on, so that we can see

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the calculation that
Illustrator is running.

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It's looking at the stroke as
it's applied to each segment

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independently, so as a
result, the corners come out

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a little bit, and then
it connects the corners,

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in order to create that
Bevel Join right there.

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I'm going to turn that layer off,

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so that we can see the
effects of the Miter Limit.

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To get a sense for how that works,

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I'll bring back up the Stroke Panel,

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and I'll reset the Corner
Option to the Miter Join,

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like so, at which point
we see this Limit Value,

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as you can see right there.

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I'm going to go ahead and zoom out,

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and then I'll press the A Key

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in order to select my white arrow

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and I'll click on this Top Anchor Point.

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I'll go ahead and drag it down
while pressing the Shift Key,

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so that I'm making the angle
more acute and notice as I do,

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that Miter Join goes flying farther out;

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in this case, all the way
out into the Pace Board.

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But, if I keep dragging
it down, at some point,

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I'm going to lose the Miter Joint entirely

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and Illustrator's going to
substitute it with a Bevel Joint.

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The idea is, your Miter
has just gotten too long.

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If you disagree, if you want
to bring the Miter back,

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then just go ahead and
press the V Key to switch

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back to the Black Arrow Tool,

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and click on that Path Outline,

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and the reason I'm having you do that,

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is notice that when any
one point in a path outline

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is deselected, you don't see
the Fill and Stroke options

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up here in the Control Panel.

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In order to see those
options, all points in a path

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have to be selected;

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which you can accomplish of course,

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by just clicking on the Path
Outline with the Black Arrow

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and that goes ahead and
brings those Fill and Stroke

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options back, at which point,
I'll click on the word Stroke,

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and I'll click in this Limit
Value, and I'll press the

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Up Arrow Key, a couple of
times, and notice if I increase

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the limit to 12 X, then
I get my Miter Join back,

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but I can once again lose that
Miter, by pressing the A Key,

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and marqueeing that end point right there,

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and dragging it down a little more,

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and notice the more acute the angle gets,

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the more likely I am to lose that Miter.

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Now, I'll just go ahead
and zoom out a little more,

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and maybe pan this art board to the right,

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and I'll press the V Key to switch back to

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the Black Arrow Tool.

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I'll click on this Path
Outline to select it,

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I'll click on the word Stroke again

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and now I'll click in this Limit Value,

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and I'll just keep
pressing the Up Arrow Key

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until I see this Miter Joint come back,

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which happens for me at 24 X.

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What in the world does that mean?

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It's 24 times half the
line weight once again.

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In our case, Illustrator
is allowing the Miter Join

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to extend 24 times 100,
that is 2400 points

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away from that corner point,

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and if that's what you want,
by all means you can go ahead

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and accept that effect even
though this is obviously

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a pretty radical point.

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In my case, I think I'll
make things right again,

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by pressing the A Key to
get the White Arrow Tool,

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Clicking the Stop Anchor
point to select it

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and then dragging up while
pressing the Shift Key,

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until I regain a semblance
of my original Miter like so.

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That's how you take advantage

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of Caps, Joins and Miter Limits.

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In the next movie, I'll show
you a practical application.