In today’s lesson, I learned about how to hide and show edges and a good tip to know what object is selected.

When working with a group of objects and the selected box is distracting, one quick fix is to use the Direct Selection Tool. However, this also can be a nuisance. To fix that, head to View, then click Hide Edges, hiding the selected border of the object.

When hidden, it is hard to tell what object is selected, so one good way to know is by looking in the Control Panel, which lists the object’s details.

If you want the edges to show, head to View then Show Edges.

In this lesson, I learned about the Align Panel and its many features that help position content accurately.

The most basic commands when it comes content positioning is the align command or working with the Align Panel. It gives you the ability to make sure your content is evenly spaced.

To open the Align Panel, go to the Window menu and choose Align. This will pop up the Align panel with 3 self-explanatory tabs. This has many features like Vertical and Horizontal Align Center, but keep in mind that it’s easiest to work with aligning if all of the objects are selected. One useful tool is the Distribute Object Section, which takes the first and last object to evenly space out the objects in between.

In this lesson, I learned a little more about guides, but most importantly, how to set up and customize a grip and how to work with the snap features.

By default, when you grab an object by clicking and dragging, you can have it snap to the guide as long as the cursor is intersecting with the guide. This option is called Snap to Point which can be found under the View menu. When deselected, the object to snap to guide independently.

Not only do rulers and guides help position your content, but grids as well. Head to View and click Show Grid, making a grid pattern over the document. You can customize it by going to Preferences in the control panel, then Guides & Grid, opening a dialog box. In here, you can change the color and style of the guides and grid, not to mention the grid size and subdivision.

Under the View menu, there is an option called Snap to Grid. What this will do is snap to the intersecting gridlines. You can also make it invisible by going to View, then Hide Grid.

For this lesson, what I got away was the vast usage of rulers and guides to get precise results for your artwork.

Rulers and guides help align text and graphic objects. To begin, head to the View and choose Rulers, then Show Rulers, making a top and side ruler appear.

When finding exact measurements on an artboard, it’s easiest to have the 0,0 point aligning with the artboard. If the 0,0 point isn’t set up with the artboard, place the cursor in between the horizontal and vertical guides, then click and drag and move it to an ideal spot. However, when working with multiple artboards, it becomes very difficult to find a measurement. To fix that, head to View and Rulers once again and select Change to Artboard Rulers, which sets the 0,0 point to the active artboard.

Another good thing about rulers is that if you want to zoom in, the tick marks are updated based upon magnification. You can also change the measurement by right clicking on the ruler and selecting a unit of measurement.

When working with rulers, you’re simultaneously working with guides, too. To create a guide, place the cursor in the ruler, then click and drag out a guide. Click again to set down the guide and lock it in place in the View menu, then Guides, then Lock Guides.

There are many uses with guides like moving them wherever and turning off visibility. To do that, head to View, then Guides, then Hide Guides. You can also toggle the guide either horizontally and vertically by clicking and dragging on the ruler and holding down the Alt key.

A nice feature of Illustrator gives you the ability to make a guide out of a path. Create a rectangular shape with the Rectangle Tool, then View, Guides and Make Guides, and that shape is now a guide. You can undo that by simply going into View, then Guides, then Release Guides. Make sure it isn’t locked or else this feature can’t work. Finally, to get rid of the guides, head back to View, then Guides, then Clear Guides.

In today’s lesson, I learned how the control panel recognizes and modifies different objects and how it can be customized.

The Control panel, or the options bar, offers quick access to options related to the objects you select. It’s very crucial since it changes based upon what you have selected and what you’re working inside of the document.

When selected, the control will show what type that object is, color, stroke and stroke weight, width profile, brush definition, and much more. For customization, head to the far right-hand side of the screen, there’s a button with all of the options that can appear in the panel. You can also move the panel to the bottom by clicking Dock To Bottom.

In this lesson, I learned about the 2 panels and how they work. I also learned how Mac users can achieve the same compared to Windows.

For Mac users, the document will appear as an Application Frame, and if not preferred, head to the Window menu and deselect Application Frame. This will make a document a free-floating window which is how most Mac applications behave. Anytime you need to go to the Preferences dialog box, head to the Illustrator menu at the top of the screen, then Preferences.

To the left side is the tools panel where you can access different tools and mechanisms for your artwork. You can change the Tools panel from 2 columns to 1 by heading to the top left of the panel where you can see 2 little arrows, which can be clicked, causing the panel to collapse.

On the right side are the properties panels and the same thing can be done by clicking the arrows to expand the panel view. If you want the panel to be free-floating, just click and drag the panel tab onto the document, and can be placed back by clicking and dragging.

If you want to add more panels, simply go the the Windows menu and select any panel underneath. If you click on a panel that has already been selected, it will expand on its own.