Appearances and Effects

To fill an object with a custom Gradient in Adobe Illustrator:

1. Select the object that you want to fill.
2. In the Appearance Panel select the Fill (or Stroke) that you want to make into a Gradient.
3. Open the Swatches panel (Window >Swatches) and the Gradient panel (Window >Gradient).
4. Click and drag a Swatch from the Swatches panel onto one end of the Gradient Slider in the Gradient panel. Release the mouse button when you see a plus sign (+) modifier below the Cursor. Ai will create a Color Stop where you dropped the slider on the Selected object. Repeat this step to add additional Stops.
5. Optionally, click an existing Color Stop to select it and then Alt + Drag to copy it to another location on the Slider. Copying is useful when you have a repeating pattern of Stops e.g., several pairs of alternating light and dark Stops.
6. Optionally, to delete a Color Stop just drag it off the slider.
7. Optionally, to space the Color Stops precisely, select each Stop and in the Gradient panel's Location field, type a percentage value that represents the point on the Slider where Ai should place the Stop.

To edit a gradient using the Gradient tool:

1. Select the object that has the gradient that you want to modify.
2. In the Tools panel, click the Gradient tool.  Ai will display the Gradient Annotator to the object that has the Gradient. The Annotator is analogous to the slider in the Gradient panel, but works differently:  
   1. It has a spectrum line with a round end (the starting or origin point) and a square end (the ending point).
   2. It has Color Stops, which you can move along the Annotator, and which you can double-click to open the same Modify Color dialog that is used in the Gradient panel.
   3. It also has a diamond shaped icon above each pair of Stops that indicates the mid-point, where the mix of colors between two Color Stops is 50% of each.

      

   4. However, the Annotator works differently for Linear versus Radial Gradients:
      1.  Radial Gradients have a dashed ellipse that you can use to adjust their aspect ratio.
      2. On Linear Gradients, the line from the Annotator's start point to its end point must go through the center of the object. If you try to drag the Annotator off-center. Ai will show you a dashed line parallel to the Annotator that shows you where it will put the Annotator when you stop dragging and release the mouse.
      3. On Radial Gradients, the line from the Annotator's start point to its end point need not go through the center of the object. You can place the start point and end point of Annotator anywhere you want.
3. Move parts of the Annotator to update the gradient:
   1. To move the round, origin point, simply click and drag the point.
   2. To move the square, end point, click and drag the point.
   3. To add a color stop, click below the annotator's spectrum line. Ai will give the new Stop the Current Color.
   4. To change colors in a color stop, double click the stop. Ai will display the Modify Color dialog.
   5. To adjust the gradient's angle, move the cursor beyond the end point until you see the cursor change to a circular arrow. Then drag the spectrum line to a different angle.

   6. 

      To change the aspect ratio of a Radial gradient, hover over the annotator until you see an ellipse with a dotted line, which controls the extent of the Gradient in the direction of its major and minor axes. The dotted ellipse has two small circles, one with a solid black fill and one with a black dot inside a circular border. The major axis of the dotted ellipse extends along the Annotator (even though the Annotator may not go through the center of the object):
      1. To change the size of the dotted ellipse, drag the control with the center dot.
      2. To change the extent of the dotted ellipse's minor axis, drag the control with the solid fill.

To apply the same gradient to several objects in Adobe Illustrator:

1. Create the gradient on one of the objects.
2. With the objects still selected, go to the Swatches panel, and click the New Swatch (+) button to add the new swatch to the panel.
3. Shift + Select the other objects to which you want to apply the same Gradient.
4. Click the Gradient tool. Ai will display a copy of the Gradient Annotator to each of the objects. You can then use each annotator to modify its Gradient's angle, its Color Stop positions, or their colors.

To create a free form gradient in Adobe Illustrator:

1. In the Layers panel, select the object, and in the Appearance panel, select the fill to which you want to apply the gradient.
2. Go to the Gradient panel, click the Free-form Gradient icon (the third icon in the Type section. The Gradient panel will display two radio buttons labeled Points and Lines. By default, the Points button is selected, signifying that the tool will create individual color stops that blend into one another. It will also place one or more color stops on the object in locations where it thinks they are most likely to be useful and will also guess at the appropriate colors, based on the context.
3. To switch to create a chain of color stops that are arranged along a curve, simply click the Lines radio button. Now when you click on arbitrary locations, the tool will connect the color stops with a curve in the same way that curves are drawn using the Curvature tool.
4. With the Lines button selected, click to place the first point.
5. Before creating the second point, change the color of the first point. Now, as you click to create the other points, the tool will make the subsequent colors stops the same color. The color will follow the curve. Note that it may be helpful to create a Global Color swatch so that you can change the color of all the color stops with one click.
6. When you are done creating the last color stop in the chain, press the Escape-key to terminate the curve, just as you would with the Curvature tool or in the Pen tool.

Note that because the tool starts out in Point mode and places default color stops, you cannot create just a single chain without creating any points. The first time you switch to Line mode, the tool does not delete the default individual color stops (it assumes that you will want both a few individual color stops and perhaps some chains. To create just a single chain without any points, you will have to delete the default, Line mode points.

To modify Free Form gradient color stops in Adobe Illustrator:

1. With the object Selected and the Fill targeted in the Appearance panel, go to the Gradient panel, and click the Edit Gradient button. The tool will display the color stops, on the object.
2. Select the Points button, then you can:
   1. Click to select a color stop point.
   2. Shift + click to select several color stops (this only works in Points mode).

   3. Mouse over a color stop point to display its spread, i.e., the radius within which it will blend with other color stops. Ai will show the outer limits of the Spread as a circle with a dotted border.

   4. Drag the small circular Spread Adjustment Widget to expand or contract the Spread.

   5. Double click to change the color. The tool will display a color panel that allows you to select a color by using a color a pallet, swatches, or the Eye-dropper tool. Note that if you use the Eyedropper tool, it will persist, to get rid of it, press the Escape-key

Transform a Pattern Fill

The dialog boxes for the Scale and Rotate tools have check boxes that allow you to apply the transformation to: (A) just the object leaving the pattern unchanged, (B) just the pattern leaving the object unchanged, or (C) both.

To scale or rotate just the object, just the pattern, or both:

1. Select the object.
2. In the Appearance panel, target the Fill or Stroke that you want to transform.

3. 

   Double click the Rotate or Scale tool.
4. Check one or both check boxes.
5. Set the tool's parameters.
6. Click Copy to make a transformed copy, or click OK to implement the transformation on the selected object.