Use the powerful Shape tools to quickly craft vector shapes. Most shapes are live, which means you can dynamically adjust them, without switching the tool, using the on-shape control widgets or the controls available in the Transform panel.
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Note:
- To view the bounding box when you select an object, ensure that the setting is set to display the bounding box (View > Show Bounding Box).
- To view the on-screen control widgets when you select any shape, select any live shape drawing tool and ensure that the setting is set to Show Shape Widgets (
) in the Control panel.
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Note:
- When you drag the corners widgets to the maximum possible limit, the preview of the rounded corners is displayed in red.
- To cycle through corner styles, such as Round, Inverted Round, and Chamfer, Alt-click (Windows) or Option-click (macOS) the corner widget or press Up and Down arrow keys while dragging the widget.
- To access a Corners menu to customize the appearance and rounding attributes, double-click the widget using the Direct Selection tool. For details, see Work with Live Corners.
- To edit a corner individually, use the Direct Selection tool and click the anchor point of the corner to modify.
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You can modify the shapes using the Control panel, the Properties panel, or the Transform panel (Window > Transform). For details, see Live shapes properties.
Note:
- You can open the Transform panel by double-clicking any corner widget.
- To specify if the Transform panel appears or not when you create a live shape, use the Show on Shape Creation option in the Transform panel menu.
- Irrespective of which tool is selected, when shapes of the same type are selected, editing properties in the Transform panel will modify the selected artwork.
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A. Transform panel B. Properties panel
- Width/Height: Specifies the height or width of the rectangle. The corners are maintained, and the radii do not change.
- Rectangle Angle: Rotate the rectangle, using the Scale/Rotate widget.
- Corner Type: Specifies the Corner type of any of the corners of the rectangle.
- Corner Radii: Use the stepper control or type in an absolute value in the Transform panel, for each of the corners of the rectangle.
- Constrain Width And Height Proportions: Use the Scale Corner checkbox to ensure that corner radii increase or decrease in direct proportion to the object's transformation.
- Width/Height: Specifies the width and height of the ellipse. When equal, the ellipse is a circle.
- Ellipse Angle: Specifies the angle at which the Ellipse is placed on the canvas.
- Pie Start/Pie End Angle: Use the Pie widget (to the right of a newly-drawn Ellipse shape) to present the shape as a pie chart representation.
- Constrain Pie Angle: Specifies if the difference in the Pie Start and Pie End Angles must be maintained when modifying their values using the Transform panel.
- Invert Pie: Specifies when the Pie Start and Pie End Angles must be swapped. Use this to generate a 'slice' graphical representation.
- Polygon Side Count: Specifies the number of sides the polygon will have.
- Using the on-screen widget
, you can change this to between 3 and 11. - Use the slider to modify the value between 3 and 20.
- If you want a value between 3 and 1000, type the value manually.
- Using the on-screen widget
- Polygon Angle: Specifies the angle at which the polygon will be drawn or placed relative to the canvas.
- Corner Type: Specifies the type of corner you want for the polygon (Round, Inverted Round, or Chamfer).
- Polygon Radius: Specifies the exact radius of the polygon drawn. Use the on-screen
widget 
to modify the radius.
- Polygon Side Length: Specifies the length of each side of the polygon.
- Corner Radius: Specifies the radii of the corners of the polygon.
- Make Sides Equal: While modifying a polygon, if the live shape becomes disproportionate or loses symmetry, use the Make Sides Equal button to balance the sides of the polygon.
- Line Length: Specifies the length of the line drawn.
- Line Angle: Specifies the angle at which the line is drawn, relative to the canvas.
While using the Shape tool, you may choose to hide or show the bounding box. Do one of the following:
- To toggle between the two options, press (Windows) Shift+Ctrl+B, or (macOS) Shift+Cmd+B.
- Choose View > Hide Bounding Box, or View > Show Bounding Box.
You may also choose to hide or show the on-screen control widgets by selecting any live shape drawing tool and clicking the Hide/Show Shape Widgets button (
) in the Control panel.
Live shapes are displayed as a different object type in the Layers panel. For example, when you draw a Live Rectangle, the layer is named <Rectangle>, in the Layers panel. This helps in identifying the available live shapes, for purposes of selection and modification.
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