49 Adobe Illustrator Shortcuts for Designers

Learning Illustrator shortcuts is an excellent way to improve the efficiency of your workflow. Rather than provide a long list of all the shortcuts, I have picked out a useful selection that you can learn as a starting point.

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Try to practice with a couple of these every week, and you’ll be knocking out your vector graphics in no time!

For further reading, I have written companion posts for Adobe Photoshop, Adobe InDesign, and macOS.

General Tricks

Action	Mac	Win
Paste in Front	Cmd + F	Ctrl + F
Paste at Back	Cmd + B	Ctrl + B
Paste onto all Artboards	Option + Shift + Cmd + V	Alt + Shift + Ctrl + V
Place file	Shift + Cmd + P	Shift + Ctrl + P
Temp. select Hand Tool	Spacebar	Spacebar
Cycle through open documents	Cmd + Tab	Ctrl + Tab
Duplicate	Hold Option + Drag	Hold Alt + drag

Tools

Action	Mac	Win
Artboard	Shift + O	Shift + O
Selection	V	V
Direct Selection	A	A
Pen	P	P
Blob Brush	Shift + B	Shift + B
Increase/Decrease Blob size	] / [	] / [
Add Anchor Point	+	+
Delete Anchor Point	–	–
Type	T	T
Line	\	\
Rectangle	M	M
Ellipse	L	L
Paintbrush	B	B
Pencil	N	N
Rotate	R	R
Scale	S	S
Gradient	G	G
Eyedropper	I	I
Blend	W	W
Hand	H	H
Zoom	Z	Z

Working with Guides

Action	Mac	Win
Hide Guides	Cmd + ;	Ctrl + ;
Lock Guides	Option + Cmd + ;	Alt + Ctrl + ;
Make Guides	Cmd + 5	Ctrl + 5
Release Guides	Option + Cmd + 5	Alt + Ctrl + 5
Show Grid	Cmd + ‘	Ctrl + ‘
Snap to Grid	Shift + Cmd + ‘	Shift + Ctrl + ‘
Toggle Smart Guides	Cmd + U	Ctrl + U

Working with Objects

Action	Mac	Win
Select all	Cmd + A	Ctrl + A
Select all in active artboard	Cmd + Option + A	Ctrl + Alt + A
Group	Cmd + G	Ctrl + G
Ungroup	Shift + Cmd + G	Shift + Ctrl + G
Lock	Cmd + 2	Ctrl + 2
Unlock	Option + Cmd + 2	Alt + Ctrl + 2
Move selection x1 unit	Arrow keys	Arrow keys
Move selection x10 units	Shift + Arrow keys	Shift + Arrow keys
Shuffle object forward	Cmd + ]	Ctrl + ]
Shuffle object back	Cmd + [	Ctrl + [
Move to front	Shift + Cmd + ]	Shift + Ctrl + ]
Move to back	Shift + Cmd + [	Shift + Ctrl + [