ConclusionĪdobe Illustrator has the most simplistic grid system of any vector design application. Enabling it later on will apply the same grid and grid settings you previously applied. Once applied, your grid won’t actually be deleted, it will just become indivisible again. If you’d like to remove your grid, simply navigate to:Īlternatively, you can use the same keyboard shortcut that was used to enabled the grid: Control + “
Keyboard shortcut bullet point illustrator how to#
Now that we’ve gone over how to make a grid in Illustrator, let’s get rid of it. However, you can remove it by simply disabling this option. This can be useful when designing something that need to be a specific size. However, a pixel grid is applied to each document, allowing the user to work in increments of whole pixels (rather than fractions of pixels) if need be.
Vectors exist on X and Y coordinate points. Seeing as how Adobe Illustrator is a vector design application, it technically does not contain any pixels. Enabling this setting will make it so that the pixel grid becomes visible when zoomed in greater than 600%.
The final option you will see in the Preferences menu is the Pixel Grid option. Disabled this option will make your artwork appear beneath the grid: The example on the left is how your artwork will look with gridlines going over it, and the example on the right has the gridlines going behind it. Within the Preferences menu you will see an option labeled as Grids In Back.īy default, this option is enabled, which means that your artwork will appear on top of the grid. For example, inputting 5 subdivisions means that there will be 4 thinner gridlines (because subdivisions represents the space between the gridlines and not the actual lines themselves) between each primary gridline. The input value for this setting represents the number of subdivisions between each gridline. They make it easier to draw with precision: Subdivisions are the faint, thinner lines that run between the bolder, primary gridlines. Subdivisions are smaller, thinner gridlines that run between the primary gridlines that you have been working with up until this point. Simply press the Enter key when you are finished and then click OK to apply your changes. The default unit of measurement for this value is pixels, but you can manually type in other units of measurement if you prefer, such as: Increasing this number will make the gridlines further apart, whereas decreasing it will make them closer together. The input value represents the spacing between each individual gridline on both the vertical and horizontal access. The Gridline Spacing preset allows you to change the amount of spacing between each gridline, which is arguably the most important thing to pay attention to whenever you make a grid in Illustrator. The primary difference is that with snapping enabled you can snap to individual dots, as opposed to entire gridlines. Grids made of dots function in essentially the same way that lines do. However, you can change your grid to dots by simply updating your preferences: In the screenshot above, the preferences were changed to make the grid into dots and colored with red. There are two types to choose from:īy default, lines are chosen. The Grid Style preset allows you to change the type of grid lines that appear on your canvas. Once applied, the color of your gridlines - which are gray by default - will be changed to whichever color you choose. Clicking on it will open a color selector where you can choose your color: Changing this setting will change the color of your gridlines. The Grid Color section allows you to determine the color of your gridlines. Let’s go over what each of these settings do and how you can use them to customize your grid. Once opened, it should look something like this: The properties of your grid that can be changed are highlighted in red above. You can edit your grid using the Preferences menu, which can be accessed by navigating to:Īlternatively, you can open this menu by using the keyboard shortcut ( Control + K) which is a quicker way to access it (although you’ll have to navigate to the Guides & Grid section manually.) Now that we’ve gone over how to enable grids in Illustrator, let’s have a look at how to customize the grid properties to your preferences. This will enabled the visibility of your grid in the same way that the menu system does. Turn on the grid visibility using the keyboard shortcutĪnother way in which you can make a grid in Illustrator is by simply enabling it with the following keyboard shortcut: Control + “
Your document’s grid will then become visible, which should look like this by default: How the default grid looks once enabled. The first way to make a grid in Illustrator is to simply enable its visibility via the menu system.
Turn on the grid visibility using the menu system