If any of the shapes were not enclosed before being cut by the Knife Tool, they will be enclosed once the Knife has done its work. As long as the shape isn't locked or hidden, the Knife will slice through anything it passes over. The Knife Tool will work on as many shapes as you want at the same time, including groups of shapes. This will result in several sections, all of which become their own independent shapes.

You could also make a ‘zig zag’ cut across the shape, cutting back and forth before releasing the mouse button. You’ll see that you’ve cut the shape into two parts, each part with a closed path, indicated by the fact that both sections have a stroke all the way around. Now click a part of the shape and drag it away. Deselect the shape (which will have become selected when the cut was made). The shape will now show an additional stroke along the line you’ve just cut. Release when you’ve passed all the way over the shape. It doesn’t matter whether or not the shape is selected for this process, but with the Knife selected, click on the artboard (away from the shape) and drag across the shape where you want to slice across it. The random shape I've created has an irregular stroke applied to it via the Irregular Width Profile submenu. If you give the shape a stroke it'll help to demonstrate some of the differences between the tools. These three tools are used to cut or remove parts of an Illustrator element in slightly different ways.įirst, create a simple shape. The little submenu conceals two tools in addition to the Eraser Tool: The Scissors Tool and the Knife, the latter of these being represented by a little serrated blade. For example, included in the Illustrator Tool Bar is an Eraser Tool which has a little submenu arrow: Illustrator How to Cut a Shape Using the Knife ToolĪll the buttons on the tool bar that have a tiny arrow in the bottom right corner (pointing down and to the right) indicate that the button conceals more tools in a submenu, accessible when you hold the button down. However, the five methods explained on this page cut a shape in Illustrator in slightly different ways. As ever, there are lots of different ways to achieve lots of different things in Illustrator, and cutting a shape is one of them. This article has been written using Adobe Illustrator CS6, but the steps are the same no matter what version you're using.

How to cut one shape out of another in Illustrator.

Cutting a shape using the Crop Tool (this deletes unwanted elements outside a specific shape).Cutting a shape using the Clipping Mask Tool (this masks to a specific shape rather than cuts).Cutting a shape using the Scissors Tool.Illustrator How to Cut a Shape This article covers in Adobe Illustrator how to cut a shape using one of five methods:

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