Basics

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Getting to know your workspace

Left side bar – tools
Right side bar – properties
Top bar – control bar

View menu – appearance of workspace
Window menu – what tool bars to show

Definitions

Artboard - where you draw. Saves/prints within the artboard. Can be manipulated/changed, duplicated.
Drawings - Graphics are vectors (mostly, can paste in non-vector graphics). Drawn in coordinate space (x and y).
Paths – series of points, connected.
Lines drawn between the points can be straight or curves.
Anchors – points, connected by lines. Anchors help define the curvature of the lines.
Handles – one way to control the curvature (bezier curves) of lines, and are defined by their length and angle.
Layers - part of the workspace where your objects sit. Multiple layers on an artboard.
Useful to organize and control visibility of objects.
Groups - multiple paths grouped.
Note - cannot group across layers (group gets transferred to top layer).
Type - text is a different class of object. Can be modified/edited mostly the same as other objects.
Can also convert it to a path but then you lose the ability to edit.

Tools - drawing and manipulation tools.
Most functions are easy to guess from their icons. Hover over to get name and shortcut.
Selection tools grouped together at top.
Followed by drawing tools, and then manipulation/effect tools.
Hidden tools can be accessed by holding down on tools with a little triangle in the bottom corner.
Tool options can be modified/accessed by double clicking (most tools have this).

Many effects and properties (fun sidebar).
Main/most useful are:
Color
Effects such as strokes, gradients, transparency
Layers, artboards, actions, appearances, etc.

Control bar

Edit properties for single or multiple paths/edges. Changes depending on the object you’ve selected.
Paths
Anchor points
Type
Can also be used to manipulate the position of the object and its width precisely using coordinates, or align relative to other objects

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