As you can see in the image above, I have two pieces of a lowercase “f” that I want to merge together with pathfinder. Below I have the two pieces lined up where I want them, and If I simply use pathfinder now and merge them, I will get more than one point on the bottom left curve, where the arrow is. I want to have a nice clean curve there, so I’m going to use the “Average” function.

As you can see here, in wireframe mode zoomed way in, the 2 points are not exactly lined up.

Step 1:

As pictured above, use the Direct Select Tool (white arrow) and select the 2 points you want to align.

Step 2:

Go to Object > Path > Average, and select “both,” then hit ok.

And that’s it. Now your points are in exactly the same x,y coordinates, so when you use pathfinder, the result is only a single point, not two.

Now I have my nice clean path outline to work with!

Illustrator: Align to Key Object [HD] from Jay Hilgert on Vimeo.

Ok, take a close look at the screenshot above. You’ll notice that the line I circled is not perfectly horizontal. You can tell by the steps in the path. Sometimes you can adjust your keyboard nudge increment in the preferences, select one of the points, and nudge it to where it needs to be. But another way to make a perfect alignment between 2 points is using the Align palette and the direct select tool, just like you would for 2 objects. Here’s how:

1. Open the “Align” palette and make sure you have “Align to Selection” checked.

2. Using the Direct Select tool (White Arrow) select both of the points you want to align, the hit the “Vertical Align Center” button in the Align palette. Now both points will be perfectly aligned, thus, your path will be perfectly strait.

This can come in pretty handy on those paths that you need to be perfect, like designing fonts or cutting out stickers for example. Hope some of you find it useful :)

Illustrator: Blend Tool Spacing from Jay Hilgert on Vimeo.

Understand this first:

1. If you noticed from the screenshot above, you can access Illustrator’s anchor points from the Transform palette. (or the horizontal quick menu in some of the latest versions of Illy)

2. Using Anchor Points to align objects only works when numeric values (x, y coordinates) are entered into the Transform Palette. (i.e., choosing an anchor point and then using the Align palette will not work.)

Get to Know the Artboard:

Here is an example of a default coordinate system on a 400 X 400px Illustrator artboard. Since you must use the (x, y) coordinate system to enjoy this feature, it’s important to familiarize yourself with, at the very least, where Illustrator puts (0, 0)

Example 1:

In this example (from the Transform palette) I chose the bottom left anchor point to do my alignment. I then entered in the x and y coordinates (0, 0) and I’m instantly able to be 100% sure that my shape is perfectly aligned to the bottom left corner.

You might look at the example above and say to yourself, “You can do that with the Align palette.” In this case you would be correct, but in example 2 below, you’ll see something that the align palette can’t do.

Example 2:

In this example, I chose the center anchor point, and aligned my object to the upper left corner by entering a 0(zero) x value, and 400 y value. Now my circle’s exact center is exactly aligned to the upper left corner. Why is this so special? Well, for one thing, this amount of control is great for making seamless patterns. And seamless patterns are file-size reducers, as well as time savers in most cases.