7 Fun and Useful Adobe Illustrator Functions You Didn't Know About

How many of you like to draw? I know I do! In fact, it’s one of my passions. One of the best programs that I use when creating illustrations and pictures is Adobe Illustrator (AI). It’s really cool because it makes it really easy to create great looking graphics and artwork.

There are lots of drawing tools in AI that can help you with the creation process, but did you know that there are tons of hidden functions as well? Today, I’m going to tell you about 8 fun and useful Adobe Illustrator functions that you didn’t know about!

7 Fun and Useful Adobe Illustrator Functions You Didn't Know About

1) Creating Shapes

One of Adobe Illustrator’s lesser-known functions is Offset Path, which enables you to create new shapes or adjust paths. It’s similar to creating a shadow, since it places an identical copy of a shape behind or in front of another shape with a distance offset value.

The resulting effect can be used to place an overlapping path that casts a shadow on another shape; even though there is no fill or stroke in Adobe Illustrator CS6, you can use Offset Path with Stroke so that its offset duplicates display strokes. Here are three fun uses for some of my favorite Adobe Illustrator functions

2) Reverse Line Weight

One of my favorite Adobe Illustrator functions is Reverse Line Weight. It sounds weird, but I use it all the time. If you've ever found yourself creating a basic shape with regular line weight in vector form and then have to switch to your Pen tool or other drawing function to create line breaks, you will fall in love with Reverse Line Weight.

3) Convert Anchor Points

Those of you who have used Illustrator before know that anchor points are what let you manipulate objects. Each anchor point is created by clicking on an existing anchor point. If you want to create smooth curves in your artwork, you'll use convert anchor points often.

By converting two adjacent anchor points into four quadrant corner anchors, for example, your straight line turns into a curve with smooth corners. To learn more about how to work with Adobe Illustrator functions such as convert anchor points, head over to our ultimate guide .

4) Easy Ellipse Creation

The Ellipse tool in Adobe Illustrator is pretty standard. It does what it's supposed to do: help you draw basic shapes for your vector artwork. But did you know that there are several other ways to create ellipses? They're not obvious, but they'll make your illustrations much more dynamic and visually interesting! In fact, if you've ever wanted to draw art with an organic look—like something a person would actually create with pen or pencil—these methods will allow you to easily recreate realistic-looking shapes, perfect for sketches or comics.

So grab a cup of coffee and pull up some design software! We're going to dive into these 8 fun ways you can use Adobe Illustrator functions to get creative.

5) Link Multiple Objects

Adobe Illustrator functions don’t get much play, but there are actually several really useful ones to know about. The Link tool in particular is incredibly helpful when you want to create vector art that's easy to edit later on. It allows you to link separate objects together so they move or scale as one unit rather than as separate, individual pieces.

Here's how it works: Say you're drawing a smiley face with multiple components like eyes, eyebrows, mouth, nose... with each component drawn separately on its own layer in Adobe Illustrator . All of these pieces would need to be repositioned for your drawing if you wanted them all to move (or scale) at once; it wouldn't work otherwise.

6) Adding Color Outlines

Sometimes you want to add a stroke or an outline around your vector shapes but there’s no need to head over to Effects > Stylize. Adding stroke outlines in Illustrator is actually easier than you might think! All you have to do is right-click on a selected shape or open subpath, head over to Object > Path > Add Anchor Points, then hit Enter. You’ll be given a straight path that follows along your shape where there were none before. Check out how you can use our eight favorite Adobe Illustrator functions below

7) Duplicate Sections

One of my favorite uses for Adobe Illustrator functions is to duplicate an object over and over again in a specific pattern. For example, if you wanted to fill a rectangle with three rows of nine circles each (as shown in Figure 1), you could simply open up your Rectangle Tool, click once to create a new rectangle (and leave it white), select Edit > Duplicate, choose how many rows and columns you’d like in your patterned rectangle, then check Preview to see exactly what it will look like. When you’re ready, just click OK. Voilà!