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- In this movie, I'll introduce you

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to the exciting world of
variable-width strokes

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in Illustrator, and I'll also show you

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how to customize those
strokes using the width tool.

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So for starters, I'm going to click on

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this big, thick, green
path outline right here.

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And notice up here in the control panel,

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we can see that the line
weight is 50 points,

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and right next door we
see the word Uniform.

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And that indicates that the
stroke is consistently 50 points

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along the entire path outline.

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But it doesn't have to be that way.

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You can switch to a variable-width stroke

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by clicking this down-pointing
arrowhead right here

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and choosing one of these
so-called Width Profiles,

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such as Width Profile 2.

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And now we can see that
the path gets thicker

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over here on the left-hand side,

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and then it gets thin top right,

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and then it thickens up again down right.

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Now the line weight value indicates

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the maximum thickness of the line.

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And so if I take that value
up to 80 points, let's say,

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then a line is allowed to
get as thick as 80 points

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but no thicker, or more
reasonably, I would go ahead

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and take that value down
to, let's say, 30 points.

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But my guess is that
instead of just accepting

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one of these default profiles,

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you'll want to customize
the thickness of your path.

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And you can do that by
selecting the Width Tool

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midway down the Toolbox.

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And if you don't see it, then
go ahead and click and hold

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on one of these Liquefy Tools,

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and choose the Width Tool from
the top of the flyout menu.

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Notice also that it
has a keyboard shortcut

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of shift + w for width.

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And now if you hover
over the path outline,

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you'll not only see the
usual anchor points,

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but you'll also see
these white width points.

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And as soon as you find
one with your cursor,

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then you'll see two handles
on either side of it as well.

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And so one way to use a width point

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is to click on it to select it,

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and that makes it persistent
so you can keep track of it,

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at which point, you can drag
out on one of these handles

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to make the stroke thicker,

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or you can drag inward to make it thinner.

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Now if you're lucky, you
don't have to actually

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click on a width point,
you can just hover over it

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to find the handles and drag
the handles directly like so.

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Now one of the more amazing
things about the Width Tool

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is that it allows you
to work on deselected

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and selected paths alike.

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So notice this orange
sunshine path right here.

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It ends in two round arrowheads.

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In front of those arrowheads
we're seeing stars.

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And so notice clicking on a star

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isn't going to make any difference,

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and that's because the
star doesn't have a stroke.

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So you need a stroke to start with.

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But assuming that you have a stroke,

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as we do in the case of this orange path,

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then I can just go
ahead and click and drag

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in order to create a new width point,

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and what I'm going to do is go ahead

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and make the path a little
thinner at this location.

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Now notice whereas
normally if I was to change

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the line weight value,
I would change the size

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of the arrowheads as well,

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but that doesn't happen when
you're adding width points.

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The arrowhead goes ahead
and stays its original size.

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Also notice that once you're working

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with a variable-width stroke,

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you will see width points at either end,

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in which case I can go ahead
and make that stroke flare

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by dragging outward on this handle.

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All right so now let's say I decide

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to put another width point right there,

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and then, of course, I
decide that's not really

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a good location for it.

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Why, then, you can drag a
width point to any location

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you like, and it will expand
and contract the stroke

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like some sort of crazy tapeworm.

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All right, now I'm going to
go to the end point here,

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and I'm going to make it thinner like so,

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and I might add another width point

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right about there and make
it pretty thin as well.

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All right now I want you to
see down here at the bottom

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of the stroke panel, that
in addition to the profile

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which represents the
profile as it exists now,

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so in other words, we're
seeing our customized changes,

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we've got this icon right here

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that allows us to flip the direction

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of our variable-width stroke.

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But notice if I click on
it, I flip the mountain

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and not the orange stroke,

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and that's because it's the
mountain that's selected.

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Even though we were working
on the orange stroke,

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it is not a selected path outline,

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as indicated by the stroke color

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up here in the control panel.

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And so if you want to
switch focus to that stroke,

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you need to press and
hold the control key,

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or the command key on the Mac,

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to temporarily gain access

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to the last used arrow tool,

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which in my case is the black arrow,

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and then go ahead and click
on that orange path outline,

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and then release the
control or command key

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to return to the width tool.

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And now notice in addition
to the stroke turning orange

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up here in the control panel,

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we're seeing a very different profile

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listed at the bottom of the stroke panel.

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And so now if I click
on the Flip Along icon,

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I end up flipping the
desired path outline.

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All right, also notice
next door to Flip Along

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is Flip Across, but it's dimmed,

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and that's because so far
our variable-width strokes

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are centered on their path outlines.

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You can change that, however,
and I'll demonstrate that

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on this green path outline.

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So I'll go ahead and control
click or command click on it

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in order to select that path,

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and then instead of just dragging

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one of these handles right here,

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I'm going to press the alt key

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or the option key on the
Mac and drag a handle,

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and notice what that does is it allows me

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to move one handle
independently of the other

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in order to make the thickness
of the path asymmetrical.

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And now that I've done
that, you can see that

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the Flip Across icon is now available,

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at which point I'll go
ahead and click on it

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in order to flip the
thick portion of the path

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to the inside of this mountain.

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And now I want you to see
that if I just go ahead

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and drag one of these handles

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instead of pressing the alt or option key,

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that I move them together with each other,

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but I'm doing so relative
to their new length.

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And that, folks, is how you
assign variable-width strokes

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as well as customize those
strokes using the Width Tool

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here inside Illustrator.