ILLUSTRATOR DRAWING TOOLS KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS

V- Selection Tool (black arrow)

A- Direct Selection Tool (white arrow)

E- Transform Tool (to scale, rotate, etc)

P- Pen tool

Spacebar (hold) – temporarily switch to hand tool

Command (hold) – temporarily switch to Selection tool

CLOSED PATH OBJECTS

Geometric shape tools (rectangle, ellipse, rounded rectangle, star, polygon)

MODIFIER KEYS

Keyboard shortcuts used when click and holding down mouse (active drawing mode) to make drawing tools behave differently

Option/Alt --draw shape from center point

Shift- proportionally constrain an object

Spacebar- reposition an object while in drawing tool

To create shape/object numerically- select drawing tool, just click anywhere on artboard, and fill in options

OPEN PATH OBJECTS

Line Segment Tool (hold down shift to constrain line angles to 45 degrees)

Arc Tool (modify degree of curve with up/down arrow keys, press F or X to flip direction of curve)

Spiral Too (press up/down arrows to increase/decrease # segments; press alt/option to rotate spiral)

MODIFYING OPEN AND CLOSED PATHS

Use Direct Selection Tool (white arrow) to move and modify anchor points (and beizer curve handles)

Use Direct Selection Tool (white arrow) to convert anchor to corner point (curved with beizer handles) or smooth point (angular)

Hold down Alt/option with Direct Selection tool (white arrow) to move single beizer curve handle attached to anchor point

Use Selection tool (black arrow) to connect two or more separate open path objects; Select paths or anchor points to join, and press Command+J to join anchor points

Adobe Illustrator Keyboard Shortcuts
Adobe Illustrator Drawing Basics
Adobe Illustrator Transformation Basics