Draw tools | Draw your artwork with the Pen, Pencil, or Flare tool

Learn what each Illustrator draw tool does best.


As you work on Illustrator, use draw tools like Pen, Rectangle, Paintbrush, Line Segment, and more to perform various tasks like draw squares and rectangles, freehand lines, grids, and anchor points.

Here's a quick overview of important draw tools

Type

Pen (P)
Draw straight and curved lines to create objects

Type on Path

Curvature
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Type

Anchor Point (+)
Add anchor points to paths

Type on Path

Line Segment
Draw individual straight line segments

Type

Rectangle (M)
Draw squares and rectangles

Type on Path

Elipse (L)
Draw circles and ovals

Type on Path

Polygon
Draw regular, multi-sided shapes

Type

Paintbrush (B)
Draw freehand and calligraphic lines

Type on Path

Pencil (N)
Draw and edit freehand lines

Watch this XX-second animation to learn more about working with these draw tools as you master how to draw and edit line segments, shapes and calligraphic lines.

Additional draw tools

Add Anchor Point (+) adds anchor points to paths

Print Tiling Tool

Delete anchor points (-) deletes anchor points from paths

Print Tiling Tool

Arc draws individual concave or convex curve segments

Rectangular Grid draws rectangular grids

Polar Grid draws circular chart grids

Print Tiling Tool

Star helps draw stars

Print Tiling Tool

Flare creates lens-flare or solar-flare-like effects

Blob (Shift-B) draws paths that automatically expand

Path Eraser erases paths and anchor points from the object

Print Tiling Tool

Smooth helps smoothen Bezier paths

Print Tiling Tool

Slice Selection selects web slices

Perspective Grid allows creating and rendering artwork in perspective

Slice divides artwork into separate web images

Print Tiling Tool

Symbol Sizer resizes symbol instances

Print Tiling Tool

Symbol Scruncher moves symbol instances closer together or farther apart

Symbol Shifter moves symbol instances and change stacking order

Symbol Spinner rotates symbol instances

Print Tiling Tool

Symbol Screener applies opacity to symbol instances

Print Tiling Tool

Symbol Styler applies the selected style to symbol instances

Symbol Spray (Shift+S) places multiple symbol instances as a set on the artboard

Perspective Selection brings objects, text, and moves them perpendicular to its current direction

Print Tiling Tool

Bar Graph creates graphs that are similar to column graphs, but positions the bars horizontally instead of vertically

Print Tiling Tool

Line Graph creates graphs that use points to represent one or more sets of values

Column Graph (J) creates graphs that compare values using vertical columns

Scatter Graph creates graphs that are similar to line graphs, but emphasizes totals as well as changes in values

Print Tiling Tool

Pie Graph creates circular graphs whose wedges represent the relative percentages of the values compared

Print Tiling Tool

Radar Graph creates graphs that compare sets of values at given points in time or in particular categories, and is displayed in a circular format

Stacked Bar Graph creates graphs that are similar to stacked column graphs, but stacks the bars horizontally instead of vertically

Stacked Column Graph creates graphs that stack the columns on top of one another, instead of side by side

Print Tiling Tool

Area Graph

Print Tiling Tool

Join

Shaper

Here's a handy reference of all the keyboard shortcuts to get your work done faster.

What's next?

Now that you've gotten started drawing and editing shapes and lines with Draw tools, take a step forward and learn what you can do with Modify tools.

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Ask the community

Drop in your creations and questions in the Adobe Illustrator Community. We'd love to hear from you.