- Illustrator User Guide
- Get to know Illustrator
- Introduction to Illustrator
- What's new in Illustrator
- Common questions
- Illustrator system requirements
- Illustrator for Apple silicon
- Workspace
- Workspace basics
- Create documents
- Toolbar
- Default keyboard shortcuts
- Customize keyboard shortcuts
- Introduction to artboards
- Manage artboards
- Customize the workspace
- Properties panel
- Set preferences
- Touch Workspace
- Microsoft Surface Dial support in Illustrator
- Recovery, undo, history, and automation
- Rotate view
- Rulers, grids, and guides
- Accessibility in Illustrator
- Safe Mode
- View artwork
- Use the Touch Bar with Illustrator
- Files and templates
- Tools in Illustrator
- Tools at a glance
- Select tools
- Selection
- Direct Selection
- Group Selection
- Magic Wand
- Lasso
- Artboard
- Selection
- Navigate tools
- Hand
- Rotate View
- Zoom
- Paint tools
- Gradient
- Mesh
- Shape Builder
- Gradient
- Text tools
- Type
- Type on a Path
- Vertical Type
- Type
- Draw tools
- Pen
- Add Anchor Point
- Delete Anchor Point
- Anchor Point
- Curvature
- Line Segment
- Rectangle
- Rounded Rectangle
- Ellipse
- Polygon
- Star
- Paintbrush
- Blob Brush
- Pencil
- Shaper
- Slice
- Modify tools
- Rotate
- Reflect
- Scale
- Shear
- Width
- Free Transform
- Eyedropper
- Blend
- Eraser
- Scissors
- Introduction to Illustrator
- Illustrator on the iPad
- Introduction to Illustrator on the iPad
- Illustrator on the iPad overview
- Illustrator on the iPad FAQs
- System requirements | Illustrator on the iPad
- What you can or cannot do on Illustrator on the iPad
- Workspace
- Illustrator on the iPad workspace
- Touch shortcuts and gestures
- Keyboard shortcuts for Illustrator on the iPad
- Manage your app settings
- Documents
- Work with documents in Illustrator on the iPad
- Import Photoshop and Fresco documents
- Select and arrange objects
- Create repeat objects
- Blend objects
- Drawing
- Draw and edit paths
- Draw and edit shapes
- Type
- Work with type and fonts
- Create text designs along a path
- Add your own fonts
- Work with images
- Vectorize raster images
- Color
- Apply colors and gradients
- Introduction to Illustrator on the iPad
- Cloud documents
- Basics
- Work with Illustrator cloud documents
- Share and collaborate on Illustrator cloud documents
- Upgrade cloud storage for Adobe Illustrator
- Illustrator cloud documents | Common questions
- Troubleshooting
- Troubleshoot create or save issues for Illustrator cloud documents
- Troubleshoot Illustrator cloud documents issues
- Basics
- Add and edit content
- Drawing
- Drawing basics
- Edit paths
- Draw pixel-perfect art
- Draw with the Pen, Curvature, or Pencil tool
- Draw simple lines and shapes
- Image Trace
- Simplify a path
- Define perspective grids
- Symbolism tools and symbol sets
- Adjust path segments
- Design a flower in 5 easy steps
- Perspective drawing
- Symbols
- Draw pixel-aligned paths for web workflows
- 3D effects and Adobe Substance materials
- About 3D effects in Illustrator
- Create 3D graphics
- Map artwork over 3D objects
- Create 3D objects
- Create 3D Text
- About 3D effects in Illustrator
- Color
- About color
- Select colors
- Use and create swatches
- Adjust colors
- Use the Adobe Color Themes panel
- Color groups (harmonies)
- Color Themes panel
- Recolor your artwork
- Painting
- About painting
- Paint with fills and strokes
- Live Paint groups
- Gradients
- Brushes
- Transparency and blending modes
- Apply stroke on an object
- Create and edit patterns
- Meshes
- Patterns
- Select and arrange objects
- Select objects
- Layers
- Group and expand objects
- Move, align, and distribute objects
- Stack objects
- Lock, hide, and delete objects
- Duplicate objects
- Rotate and reflect objects
- Reshape objects
- Crop images
- Transform objects
- Combine objects
- Cut, divide, and trim objects
- Puppet Warp
- Scale, shear, and distort objects
- Blend objects
- Reshape using envelopes
- Reshape objects with effects
- Build new shapes with Shaper and Shape Builder tools
- Work with Live Corners
- Enhanced reshape workflows with touch support
- Edit clipping masks
- Live shapes
- Create shapes using the Shape Builder tool
- Global editing
- Type
- Add text and work with type objects
- Create bulleted and numbered lists
- Manage text area
- Fonts and typography
- Format type
- Import and export text
- Format paragraphs
- Special characters
- Create type on a path
- Character and paragraph styles
- Tabs
- Text and type
- Find missing fonts (Typekit workflow)
- Update text from Illustrator 10
- Arabic and Hebrew type
- Fonts | FAQ and troubleshooting tips
- Create 3D text effect
- Creative typography designs
- Scale and rotate type
- Line and character spacing
- Hyphenation and line breaks
- Text enhancements
- Spelling and language dictionaries
- Format Asian characters
- Composers for Asian scripts
- Create text designs with blend objects
- Create a text poster using Image Trace
- Create special effects
- Work with effects
- Graphic styles
- Create a drop shadow
- Appearance attributes
- Create sketches and mosaics
- Drop shadows, glows, and feathering
- Summary of effects
- Web graphics
- Best practices for creating web graphics
- Graphs
- SVG
- Create animations
- Slices and image maps
- Drawing
- Import, export, and save
- Import
- Place multiple files
- Manage linked and embedded files
- Links information
- Unembed images
- Import artwork from Photoshop
- Import bitmap images
- Import Adobe PDF files
- Import EPS, DCS, and AutoCAD files
- Creative Cloud Libraries in Illustrator
- Creative Cloud Libraries in Illustrator
- Save
- Save artwork
- Export
- Use Illustrator artwork in Photoshop
- Export artwork
- Collect assets and export in batches
- Package files
- Create Adobe PDF files
- Extract CSS | Illustrator CC
- Adobe PDF options
- File information and metadata
- Import
- Printing
- Prepare for printing
- Set up documents for printing
- Change the page size and orientation
- Specify crop marks for trimming or aligning
- Get started with large canvas
- Printing
- Overprint
- Print with color management
- PostScript printing
- Print presets
- Printer's marks and bleeds
- Print and save transparent artwork
- Trapping
- Print color separations
- Print gradients, meshes, and color blends
- White Overprint
- Prepare for printing
- Automate tasks
- Data merge using the Variables panel
- Automation with scripts
- Automation with actions
- Troubleshooting
- Crash issues
- Recover files after crash
- File issues
- Supported file formats
- GPU device driver issues
- Wacom device issues
- DLL file issues
- Memory issues
- Preferences file issues
- Font issues
- Printer issues
- Share crash report with Adobe
- Improve Illustrator performance
Duplicate objects by dragging
Select one or more objects.
Select the Selection, Direct Selection, or Group Selection.
Alt‑drag (Windows) or Option‑drag (Mac OS) the selection (but not a handle on the bounding box).
Duplicate objects by using the Layers panel
You can quickly duplicate objects, groups, and entire layers by using the Layers panel.
Select the items you want to duplicate in the Layers panel.
Choose Duplicate “Layer name” from the Layers panel menu.
Drag the item in the Layers panel to the New Layer button
at the bottom of the panel.Start to drag the item to a new position in the Layers panel, and then hold down Alt (Windows) or Option (Mac OS). Release the mouse button when the indicator is in the position where you want to place the duplicated item. If you release the mouse button when the indicator is pointing to a layer or group, the duplicated item is added to the top of the layer or group. If you release the mouse button when the indicator is between items, the duplicated item will be added in the specified position.
Duplicate selections using drag and drop
You can use the Clipboard to transfer selections between an Illustrator file and other Adobe software including Adobe Photoshop and Adobe InDesign. The Clipboard is particularly useful for importing paths because paths are copied to the Clipboard as PostScript language descriptions. Artwork copied to the Clipboard is pasted in PICT format in most applications. However, some applications take the PDF version (such as InDesign) or the AICB version. PDF preserves transparency; AICB lets you specify whether you want to preserve the overall appearance of the selection or copy the selection as a set of paths (which can be useful in Photoshop).
To specify copying preferences, choose Edit > Preferences > File Handling & Clipboard (Windows) or Illustrator > Preferences > File Handling & Clipboard (Mac OS). Select PDF, AICB, or both. If you select AICB, select Preserve Paths to discard any transparency in the copied artwork or Preserve Appearance And Overprints to flatten any transparency, maintain the copied artwork’s appearance, and preserve overprinted objects.
Drag and drop artwork into a Photoshop document
Select the artwork you want to copy.
Open the Photoshop document into which you want to copy the selection.
To copy the artwork into Photoshop as bitmap images, drag the selection toward the Photoshop window, and when a black outline appears, release the mouse button. To position the selection in the center of the Photoshop image, hold down Shift before dragging the selection. By default, selected objects are copied as bitmap images to the active layer.
To copy vector artwork into Photoshop as paths, hold down Ctrl (Windows) or Command (Mac OS), and drag the selection to the Photoshop document. When you release the mouse button, the selection becomes a Photoshop path.
Drag and drop artwork from Photoshop into Illustrator
Open the Photoshop document from which you want to copy.
Select the artwork you want to copy.
Select the Move tool
and drag the selection from Photoshop into the Illustrator file.
Drag and drop artwork to the desktop (Mac OS only)
Select the artwork you want to copy.
Drag the selection onto the desktop.
Selections are copied to the desktop as a picture clipping, which can be dragged and dropped into the desired document. Picture clippings are converted to PICT format when dragged to the desktop.
Offset duplicate objects
You can create a replica of an object, set off from the selected object by a specified distance, by using the Offset Path command or Offset Path effect. Offsetting objects is useful when you want to create concentric shapes or make many replications of an object with regular distances between each replication.
You can offset an object’s path relative to its original path by using the Offset Path effect in the Effect menu. This effect is useful for converting a mesh object into a regular path. For example, if you have released an envelope, or want to convert a mesh shape for use in another application, apply the offset path command with an offset value of 0, and then delete the mesh shape. You can then edit the remaining path.
Offset objects using the Offset Path command
Select one or more objects.
Choose Object > Path > Offset Path.
Specify the offset distance, line join type, and miter limit.
Offset objects using the Offset Path effect
Select one or more objects.
Choose Effect > Path > Offset Path.
Specify the offset distance, line join type, and miter limit.
Offset objects using keyboard
Select one or more objects.
Hold down Alt and press an arrow key.
A duplicate object is created, and is offset by the Keyboard Increment value specified in the General preferences. The location of the new object is determined by the arrow key you used.
If a duplicate is not created, make sure that the Keyboard Increment preference is set to a value other than zero.