Operation Manual
250
USING ILLUSTRATOR
Reshaping objects
Last updated 11/8/2011
Cut objects with the Knife tool
1 Select the Knife tool . Click and hold the eraser tool to see and select the Knife tool. See “Select a tool” on page 18
for other methods of selecting tools.
2 Do one of the following:
• To cut in a curved path, drag the pointer over the object.
• To cut in a straight path, hold down Alt (Windows) or Option (Mac OS) as you click on the artboard with the Knife
tool, and then drag.
More Help topics
“Slicing and cutting tool gallery” on page 26
“Tools panel overview” on page 16
Divide an object into a grid
1 Select the object.
If you select more than one object, the resulting grid of objects uses the appearance attributes of the topmost object.
2 Choose Object > Path > Split Into Grid.
3 Enter the number of rows and columns you want.
4 (Optional) Do any of the following:
• To set the size of each row and column, enter values for Height and Width.
• To set the amount of space that separates rows from one another and columns from one another, enter values for
Gutter.
• To change the dimensions of the entire grid of objects, enter values for Total.
• To add guides along the row and column edges, select Add Guides.
5 Click OK.
More Help topics
“Draw grids” on page 60
Clipping masks
About clipping masks
A clipping mask is an object whose shape masks other artwork so that only areas that lie within the shape are visible—
in effect, clipping the artwork to the shape of the mask. The clipping mask and the objects that are masked are called
a clipping set. You can make a clipping set from a selection of two or more objects or from all objects in a group or layer.
Object-level clipping sets are combined as a group in the Layers panel. If you create layer-level clipping sets, the object
on top of the layer clips all of the objects below it. All operations that you perform on an object-level clipping set, such
as transformations and alignment, are based on the clipping mask’s boundary, not the unmasked boundary. Once you
have created an object-level clipping mask, you can only select the clipped content by using the Layers panel, the Direct
Selection tool, or by isolating the clipping set.