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Draw free-form paths with the Vector Path tool

The Vector Path tool, located in the Pen tool pop-up menu, is like using a felt-tip marker or crayon.

The tool has a wide variety of brush stroke categories, including Air Brush, Calligraphy, Charcoal, Crayon, and Unnatural. Each category typically has a choice of strokes, such as Light Marker and Dark Marker, Splattered Oil, Bamboo, Ribbon, Confetti, 3D, Toothpaste, and Viscous Alien Paint.

Although the strokes look like paint or ink, each has the points and paths of a vector object. This means that you can change the shape of the stroke using any of several vector-editing techniques. After you reshape the path, the stroke is redrawn. You can also modify existing brush strokes and add fills to selected objects you have drawn with the Vector Path tool.

See Applying color, strokes, and fills.

  1. From the Pen tool pop-up menu, select the Vector Path tool .

  2. (Optional) Set stroke attributes and Vector Path tool options in the Property inspector. (Optional) For more precise path smoothing, select a number from the Precision pop-up menu in the Property inspector for the Vector Path tool. The higher the number you select, the greater the number of points that appear on the path you draw.

  3. Drag to draw. To constrain the path to a horizontal or vertical line, hold down Shift while dragging.

  4. Release the mouse button to end the path. To close the path, release the mouse button when you return the pointer to the point at the beginning of the path.