Adobe Illustrator Smart Notes

Live Corner Widgets

Overview

Screen shot of
The Corners Dialog Box

You can visually change the curvature and style of any path's corner points by using on-art, Corner Widgets. The widget is a metaphor for the center of the radius of curvature of a corner, so for example, dragging the widget away from the corner extends the radius, which makes the curvature more relaxed; moving it toward the corner makes the radius short and the curvature tighter.

Corner Widget Enabled and Selected

You can also edit corners that have visible, selected Live Corner Widgets quantitatively, via the Corners dialog box, which you can invoke by clicking the Corners control in the Control panelImage of the Corner Widget Control in the Control panel.. The Corners dialog illustrates the properties of corners.

Once you enable, these widgets (via View > Show Corner Widget), Ai makes them available on all corner points of all paths.  However, the widgets are not normally visible until you select the corner points with the Direct Selection tool. When selected, you can simply drag on the widgets to change the curvature.

Corner Types

Types of Corners

In addition to the standard type or corner, the round corner type, there are two other types of corner. The accompanying figure shows how these corners look in situ.

Radius

Visual explanation of Corner Widget Curvature
Corner Widget Curvature

Roughly speaking, the result of the default rounding process looks like Ai took a circle of the specified radius and stuck it into the corner until it touched the sides of the corner and then replaced the corner angle with the curve of the circle.

Rounding

Screen shot of
Corner Widget Rounding

The rounding options are Absolute versus Relative:

  • Absolute means that Ai always sets the curvature to the exact value of the radius (shown in the Corners panel's Radius Field).
  • Relative means that Ai adjusts the radius of the corner's curvature relative to the angle of the corner, reducing the radius for sharp corners.

As the accompanying figure shows, effect of the radius adjustment is most evident when the corner angle is tight, in which case, Ai reduces the curvature so that the corner's height does not change so radically.



Screen shot of a path made up of corner points converted into a path with smooth points by adding Live Corner Widgets.
Corner Points Path to Smooth Curve

As Deke McClelland points out in his video course, Drawing Better and Faster with Illustrator CC, efficiency in drawing comes down to minimizing the number of anchor points and control handles that you must create to draw a path. Corner Widgets help by allowing you to quickly transform an easy to draw path made solely of corner points into a smooth curve that has many control handles.

Using Live Corners

Enable Live Corners

To enable Live Corner Widgets in Adobe Illustrator:

  1. Click View > Show Corner Widget. Ai will:
    1. Toggle the View > Show Corner Widget menu item to read View > Hide Corner Widget.
    2. Add the widgets to all current paths and newly created paths that have corner points.
  2. If you do not see the Corner Widgets select the corners to which you want to add curvature with the Direct Selection tool.
Screen shot of paths made with the pen tool that have had their corners marquee selected with the Direct Section tool.
Paths with Corners Selected to Show the Live Corner Widgets 

In most cases, when you create a path, the enabled Live Corner widgets will not be visible until you select them with the Direct Selection tool. The exception is Live Shapes. When you create a Live Shape with corner points and have Bounding Boxes enabled (View > Show Bounding Box, Ctrl + Shift + b), Ai will select the Live Corner Widgets by default (and you can even drag them while still in the Shape tool).

Edit Corners Quantitatively with the Corners Dialog

To precisely change the corner type or the curvature of Live Corner Widgets in Adobe Illustrator:

  1. Get the Direct Selection tool.
  2. With the Direct Selection tool, either: (A) select one corner point, or (B) Shift + click or marquee-select to select several corner points.
  3. Click the Corners tool in the Control panel. Ai will display the Corners dialog box.
  4. In the dialog box, select the corner's style, its radius of curvature, or its Rounding setting.
  5. Click OK. Ai will implement the specified change on all the selected widgets.

Editing Corners Visually with Live Corner Widgets

To visually edit corners that have Live Corner Widgets enabled in Adobe Illustrator:

  1. Get the Direct Selection tool. If you are working with a Live Shape, all the corner widgets may be visible and selected by default.
  2. With the Direct Selection tool, select one corner point, or Shift + click, or marquee select several corner points. Ai will display the selected Live Corner Widgets.
  3. Click and drag any selected Live Corner Widgets. Ai will change the curvature of all the selected widgets.
  4. Optionally, to change the corner style visually, with the Direct Selection tool, hover over one of the selected widgets. Ai will modify the cursor to display the current corner style of the selected widgets.
  5. Alt + click on the widgets. Ai will change the modifier and the corner on the selected widgets to show the next corner style. Alt + Click until you see the corner style that you want.

Resources