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Live Corner Widgets

Overview

Screen shot of the Corners Dialog Box
The Corners Dialog Box
Live Corner Widgets are on-art controls that allow you to visually change the curvature and style of any path's corner points. The Widget itself 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 larger; moving it toward the corner makes the radius shorter and the curvature tighter.
Illustration of a Corner Widget Enabled and Visible, but not selected.
Corner Widget Enabled and Visible, but not Selected

You can also edit corners that have Live Corner Widgets quantitatively, via the Corners dialog box, which you can invoke by double-clicking a widget or by single-clicking the Corners control in the Control panel (Image of the Corner Widget Control in the Control panel.).

Live Corner Widgets can be enabled or not, visible or not, and selected or not.

Before you can see Live Corner Widgets you must enable them, to do that the two default settings View > Show Bounding Box, and View > Show Corner Widget must both be on. But that is not all.

If you create a path with the Rectangle or Rounded Rectangle tools, you will see the Corner Widgets by default. Otherwise, i.e., almost always, to make the Widgets visible, you must click the interior of the path with the Direct Selection tool. If you drag a Widget when it is enabled, but no Widgets are selected, you will change the Curvature of all the path's Widgets.

If you want to change just some, but not all the Widgets, you must not only make them visible, but then select the Widgets that you want to change by clicking them with the Direct Selection tool.

Radius

Visual explanation of Corner Widget Curvature
Corner Widget Curvature

The Radius of Curvature of a path at a given point is the radius of the circle that best fits the curve at that point. So, 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 point of the angle with the curve of the circle.

When you drag selected Live Corner Widgets, the Control panel's Corners control will display the Radius of Curvature in real time(Live Corner Widget Control in the Control Panel that shows the corner radius in real time as you drag the control.).

Corner Types

Visual explanation of the three types of Corners available in the Live Corner Widget.
Types of Corners

In addition to the standard Round Corner type, there are two other types of corners: the Inverted Round corner and the Canpher corner. The accompanying figure shows how these corners look in situ.

Rounding Options

Comparison of Absolute versus Relative rounding Option in the Live Corner Widget
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.


Illustration of a path made up of corner points converted into a path with smooth points by adding Live Corner Widgets.
Converting a path with Corner Points into a 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 manually in order 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 All Live Corner Widgets

To see all the Live Corner Widgets of a path in Adobe Illustrator:

  1. If necessary, execute the View > Show Bounding Box (Ctrl + Shift + b) command to toggle Bounding Boxes on and change the View menu entry to View > Hide Bounding Box.
  2. If necessary, execute the View > Show Corner Widget. Ai will:
    1. Toggle on Corner Widgets. Corner Widgets may not show, even on a Selected path until you click the path with the Direct Selection tool.
    2. Toggle the View > Show Corner Widget menu item to read View > Hide Corner Widget.
  3. If you do not see the Corner Widgets, click inside the path 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 made with the pen tool that have been marquee selected with the Direct Selection tool to make their Corner Widgets visible.

In most cases, when you first create a path, the Live Corner widgets will not be visible until you select them with the Direct Selection tool. The exceptions are the Rectangle, Rounded Rectangle, and the Polygon. When you create one of these Shapes and have enabled Bounding Boxes and Corner Widgets, Ai will select the Live Corner Widgets by default (and you can even drag them while still in the Shape tool). In this case, dragging the Shape will change the curvature of all the Corner Widgets simultaneously.

Edit Corners Quantitatively with the Corners Dialog

Illustration of Corner Widgets selected with the Direct Selection tool to prepare them for editing with the Corners control.
Corner Widgets selected with the Direct Selection tool to prepare them for editing with the Corners control.

To change the corner type or change the curvature of Live Corner Widgets to a precise numerical value in Adobe Illustrator:

  1. Ensure that you have View > Show Bounding Box and View > Show Corner Widget toggled on.
  2. Get the Direct Selection tool, and click inside the path to make Ai show all the Corner Widgets. Now, when you hover over any Corner Widget, Ai will show a cursor with a modifier beneath it that looks like an arc (Corner Widget Cursor). If you want to change the radius of curvature of all the Corner Widgets, double click one of the widgets to get the Corners dialog and update the Radius control, or go to the Corners control in the Control panel and update the Corner Radius field next to the control (Corner Radius field to the right of the Corners control in the Control Panel.).
  3. If you want to change the curvature of just some of the Widgets, you must first select them with the Direct Selection tool by doing one of the following:
    1. Click one corner point to select it,
    2. Shift + click several non-adjacent points, or
    3. Marquee-select around several adjacent points.
  4. Double-click any selected Corner Widget. Ai will display the Corners dialog box. Alternatively, click the Corners control in the Control panel, which will also drop down a dialog box.
  5. In the dialog box, select the corner's style, its radius of curvature, or its Rounding setting.
  6. Click OK. Ai will implement the specified change on just the selected widgets.

Edit Corners Visually with Live Corner Widgets

Just some Corner Widgets selected with the Direct Selection tool to prepare them for visual editing
Only some Corner Widgets selected with the Direct Selection tool to prepare them for visual editing

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

  1. Ensure that you have View > Show Bounding Box and View > Show Corner Widget toggled on.
  2. Get the Direct Selection tool and click inside the path that you want to modify. Ai will display the path's Live Corner Widgets. Now if you hover over a Widget, Ai will display the Direct Selection cursor with a modifier beneath it that looks like an arc (). If you now Click + hold + drag on any Widget, Ai will simultaneously change the radius of curvature of all the path's Widgets.
  3. If you want to change the curvature of just some of the Widgets, you must first select them with the Direct Selection tool by doing one of the following:
    1. Click one corner point to select it,
    2. Shift + click several non-adjacent points, or
    3. Marquee-select around several adjacent points.
    Now if you hover over one of the selected Widgets, Ai will display the Selected Corner Widget Cursor ().
  4. Click and drag any one of the selected Live Corner Widgets. Ai will simultaneously change the curvature of just the selected widgets.
  5. Optionally, to change the Widgets' 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. Then 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.

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