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- Alright, now, one of the great things

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about Variable Width,
especially the fact that you can

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adjust strokes asymmetrically,
is that it gives you

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a new control over the way
that you align the stroke

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to the path outline, that
goes well beyond this

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Align Stroke function that
we saw a few movies back.

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And it's just as applicable
to open path outlines

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as closed ones.

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So, let's say for example,
that I press the a key

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to switch to the white arrow tool,

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and I click on this upper right segment

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associated with this ellipse here.

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And notice, over here in the Stroke panel,

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how the Stroke is currently
aligned to the outside

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of this path outline.

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And so, I'll go ahead
and click on this segment

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and then shift-click on this this one,

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and shift-click on this one, so that

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the upper right segments
are selected in each one

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of the ellipses, and then
I'll press the backspace key,

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and I lose that alignment.

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Illustrator goes ahead and automatically

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switches my Align Stroke option back to

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Align Stroke to Center.

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But that's OK, because I
can modify this setting

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using Variable Width stroke.

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And so, I'll just click off
the paths to deselect them.

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And then, I'll switch to the Width Tool,

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which, once again, you can
get by pressing shift + w.

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And now, I'll just go
ahead and double-click

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on this top endpoint
in this left-hand path.

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And now, I'll change this
Side 1 setting to 20 points,

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and I'll change Side 2 to 0.

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So, in other words, I've
distributed all of the stroke,

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all 20 points of it, to the
outside of the path outline,

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at which point I'll click
OK to accept that setting.

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And then, I'll double
click on the other endpoint

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for that same path, and I'll
change its Side 1 setting

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to 20 points, and I'll change
Side 2 to 0 point, once again,

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and then I'll click OK for that.

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Alright, now, I'll press
the v key to switch

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to the black arrow tool, and
I'll go ahead and marquee

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the other two path outlines.

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And now, I'll grab my
eyedropper, which, once again,

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I can get by pressing the i key.

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And I'll go ahead and click
on that first path outline,

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the one on the left-hand side,

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in order to lift its
attributes and everybody

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is aligned once again.

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And it gets headier still.

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I'll go ahead and collapse my Stroke panel

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just a little bit, so that
I have a little more room

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for my Layers panel, down here

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in the bottom right corner of the screen.

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And I'll turn on the
Spirals layer right here.

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And I'll press the v key to switch

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to the black arrow tool, and
I'll go ahead and click on

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any one of the spirals.

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Notice that their light
blue strokes are centered

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on the path outline, as by default.

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And then, I'll go up to the
select similar objects icon,

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up here in the Control
panel, I'll click on

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the down-pointing arrow
head, and I'll just go ahead

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and choose All or Stroke Color.

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Either one's gonna work fine.

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And that'll select all the spirals.

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And now, I'll switch back
to the eyedropper tool,

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and I'll go ahead and click
on one of the purple paths,

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and that aligns everybody beautifully.

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And now, I'll just press
control + a, or command + a

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on the Mac, in order to
select all the path outlines,

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and I'll go over to the
Stroke panel right here,

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and I'll switch the Caps
option to round cap,

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which goes ahead and
fills in the gaps up there

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at the top of the path outlines.

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After which point, I can go
ahead and press the v key

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to switch back to my black arrow tool.

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And I'll click off the
paths to deselect them.

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And so, thanks to your
ability to asymmetrically

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adjust strokes along their path outlines,

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using the Width Tool, you can
align strokes to path outlines

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with this kind of precision control,

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here inside Illustrator.