Hello. I hope you're ready for some super advanced  workflow tips and tricks. Kind of speed up your illustrator experience. Go fast tricks. We're gonna clean up  paths that aren't filled. We will show you how to find things really easy  through all the big complex menus.

Transparency grids,  we'll customize our own toolbar and workspace. We'll even create a template of file sizes  that we make all the time that's not built into Illustrator. All sorts of handy dandy workflow tips and tricks. Alright, let's jump in. Okie dokie. Uh, if you wanna play along, open up workflow doc oh one.

Okay. And the first thing we're gonna look at is cleaning  up, uh, paths that don't do anything. And what I mean by that is let's go into outline mode, okay? Which is command or control y. You see there's a star. Look at this star if I go back, okay,  just toggle that same button.

It actually has no stroke, no fill. It's there. It's just a pain in the butt. I don't want it there. Same with these. See, these are like little spots here.

These are just anchor points that I did with the pen tool. Watch, pen tool. Click once, forget what I was doing. You end up with an anchor point there  that doesn't do anything. Okay? Just kind of gets in the way.

This here is the same thing,  but this is a text box with no text in it. Again, not doing a whole lot. So, uh, you can go to object, okay? You can go to Path and you can go to this one called cleanup  and it'll do all of these things. Un painted objects, straight points and empty text paths. This happens to be the things that I put in here.

Okay, let's click okay. And now if I go to command y, control Y on a pc, look,  they're all gone nice and tidy. Look at us. I find that's really useful when you're kind  of like, I don't know, using the Live Trace and Ungrouping  or using other people's work. When you're like expand, uh, you know, ungroup  and you end up with these like stuff  that you don't really need, kind of like lying around  that doesn't have a fill or a stroke,  just clean up the paths. Ooh, if you've had, uh,  fonts not load in this, don't worry about it.

It was a bit late in the video, but don't  worry if you've got missing fonts. Now the next tip is handy if you're like, ah,  Dan said there was a way of cleaning up all the paths. What was it called? Where is it? You'll never remember. So what you can do is it's a little bit  different on a Mac and a pc.

So on a Mac you go up to help. And up here it says search. And if I type clean, I kind of vaguely remember what it is. Can you see, uh, I've typed in bits of the word clean. Okay? And you can have a look, look path clean up,  see the big arrow pointing to it as well.

Look at it, okay? And you can go down here and click on it. Kind of. It's easy just to click on it up here. So path cleanup and you click on it  and it will do the thing. Um, on a pc, it's slightly different.

Okay? I'm gonna close this down on a pc,  you've got this one called Illustrator help. This works on both Mac and pc. Mac has this kind of like shortcut to it, okay? But a PC and Mac have this illustrator help. And what you can do is  I've been using this for something else.

This Discover panel opens up. Again, you can type things like, all right, I want  to do a cleanup path. Okay? The same thing kind of happens. Typed in clean. Can you see these little icons on the side here?

Means this is a dropdown menu. And can you see the thing over here appearing? Okay saying I'm in here. Okay? And down here, these are just like searches  for tutorials, okay? So there'll be like different results.

Like let's say I wanna do like a half  tone. We'll do this later in  The course. Cool effect. And  you're like, I can't remember where it is. Okay? I typed it in there.

There is uh, a couple of different half tone in here. Okay? It tells you which panel this thing's in. Okay? And uh, there you go. That works both Mac and bc.

Um, you can just click on it though. It tells you where it is, but actually just click on it  and it will start that effect. Okay? So anything in Illustrator  that's in these menus along the top here  that you can't remember where it is, just go to help. And on a Mac type it in search. If you're on a PC or a Mac, use the illustrator help.

Now I add it because I'm advanced  and I still use that thing. 'cause you're like, where, where is that thing? Okay, so everyone uses it, even the advanced people. Alright, the next is transparency grid. So the transparency grid, I'm just gonna drag the image off. 'cause often you're like, what's on this page?

And you can hit command shifty or control shifty on a pc. Okay? And you can see the kind  of more Photoshop style transparency grid  that's kinda like checkerboard and it just means you're  like, oh, okay, there's text. 'cause without it, the same key command shift,  D on a Mac control shift D on a pc,  you know, it's hard to know what is what. Okay? The same thing with this down the bottom here, okay?

Can you see the, my Fox? You're like, oh,  it's got a white insight. Why can't I click on it? Ah, it's  because it's not actually white. You're just showing the white of the background. So I'll toggle this on and off all the time.

Okay? With transparency grid, not  as needed when I've got this kinda like backing image here. But yeah, it's a handy tip. The other one is, let's have a look. I'm working on this fox, let's say an illustration,  complex illustration. And I'm working on some kind  of like really small bits in here.

And I'm like, well I'm trying to, you know,  I'm exaggerating, okay? 'cause it's not that complicated. But let's say I am working  on this and you're like, wonder what it looks like when you  zoom out and then you zoom back in. What you can do is you can say, all right, this doc up here,  I can say window, new window. And you're like, what does this do? Get ready.

Okay? What it does is it duplicates the window you had open. Okay? Two of them, they're exactly the same. They're not a copy of it,  it's just showing you two versions of the same thing. See, there's option one, see the um, colon and one,  and over here it says two.

So what you can do now is you can say,  all right, I'm gonna get a view. Uh, actually window gonna arrange these to be tiled. You can have more than one open. I don't know if that's useful. But  what we can do now is we can be very precise in here. We can be working on it.

Okay? Can you see they're actually connected. They're not two versions, just two looks at the same thing. But over here, click on this title at the top  I can zoom out, okay? And I can get like a holistic kind of view  of my illustration whilst watch the whisker. And here we go.

You see, um, I've haven't used it much. Only when I'm doing like, I don't know, more artistic kind  of complex drawings when I'm trying to like,  'cause you can drag the center bit as well. You can have that quite small. Okay? And if you click on this hold space,  you can use your normal navigation. Okay?

To get this how you want,  you get the idea, close it down. We can go to, you can just close it. Okay? It's just two views of the same thing. Alright? The next workflow hack is to create your own toolbar.

Early on in the course, I showed you how  to go from like the, we did it up here  and we said, so three dots. We went from basic to advanced. Okay? So there is another way  Of doing that and also creating your own one. Okay? So let's go to window and go to toolbar.

So here's the same thing that might actually be easier  to get to from going from basic to advanced,  but let's create our own new toolbar. Okay? You might end up creating one  or two different ones depending on the type of work. You might be doing a lot of a graphic design work  and then switching to illustration  and you want kind of different tools set up. So I'm gonna call this one the uh, Dan toolbar  because I can't think of anything better. Okay?

Give it a name. Click okay. You get this thing. Okay? You can drag it by kind of,  there's a little gap at the top there. You can move it by.

Now it's a little bit tricky to do. You can go to this three dots  and say, which ones do we use a lot? Now I'm gonna click hold and drag it. And it's, it's really tricky to do I find anyway, okay,  you can do it if you click it once and then click and drag. It doesn't seem to work. But let's say I use the selection  tool lots and I'm gonna click hold and drag the white one up  and to get it in there, you gotta kind of drag it up  and kind of get it to where you want it.

Practice. It's a little bit tricky. Um, I don't use these very often. The app or tool, I do try and drag it up. Give it a second, okay. Pen tool that I use.

Um, some of them that I don't use,  actually I don't use the pen tool 'cause I know the  Peaky so well, okay? Uh, other ones that I do forget. Mm, for rectangle, um, I dunno why remember that one, uh,  the lips tool that I might be using, okay? And just go through and say I love using this. Uh, you know, and just kind of build your own toolbar, okay? And what you can do now is you can say actually this toolbar  here, what I might do is click hold  and kind of drag the, see  that little hicks pattern at the top.

Drag it out, okay? So it's kind and it comes out  and close it and they can say you the little  dash line thing there. I can drag it over and there's this kind of like,  get it kind of close and it kind of goes blue  and you can kind of get it in the right spot. Um, then what you can do is you can say, all right,  window workspace, I'm gonna save this workspace  as a new workspace and I'm gonna call this one my um,  you know, uh, uh, graphic design workspace. Okay? And it will just have those tools saved there, okay?

So that you can use that and maybe you'll save another  workspace called illustration where you're doing more kind  of like hand drawn creative stuff. What I'm gonna do is I'm going to go to window  and I wanna open up my, uh, toolbar. I'm gonna go back to the advanced  one because that's what we need. Now drag that one out. Here we go. And actually, alright,  another handy trick if I grab my pen tool, the Peaky, okay?

Um, we start with this like, um, thing  that looks like a fountain pen, okay? We probably all stumbled across, if we hit caps lock,  it goes to like a really precise kind of target version. Okay? We've all done it by accident, okay? But you can actually turn that on all the time rather than  having to use the caps lock button on your keyboard. Okay?

So you can go up to, on a Mac, go up  to Adobe Illustrator, go to settings, go to general on a pc,  it's edit settings, um, and general. And here it says use precise curses  and it just turns that function on forever  without hitting caps lock. Okay? You can, you hit caps lock  and it goes back to the old way. It just kind of flips it, right? The  default is the precise one.

Same with like the end key for the pencil tool. It's this like target. So it's a lot more accurate, okay? So up  To you just, I don't know  why I'm used to it the other way. Okay? So I'm gonna turn mine off and click okay.

Right? The next handy trick is, uh,  when you are working on documents,  let's say I'm making a new document  and I have to make the same thing a lot  and uh, that's just not one of the templates in here. Okay? So I wanna save my own template. So I got a print. Let's say that I'm doing a post in for some reason A two,  you know, I've got a five, a three, a four,  no a two, no A one.

So I'm gonna make my own. So I know that a three yours will be different from,  you know, your whatever measurements you are using. Okay? I like a two size, so I like it. I would like it to be millimeters or inches up to you. I know that A two is just times two in terms  of the width, okay?

So I'm gonna use my little math and field trick, okay? And I want mine to be portrait. I decide if it's gonna be CMYK, all  of these things I decide, okay? And I'm gonna go create, so I've created this thing. I want it to save as a template  so I can get a file save as a template. Now I'm gonna go mine a two poster, okay?

And depending on your Mac  and your installation, um, I think PCs just save it  to this template's folder. Fine. On a Mac though, it would depend on  how illustrators installed. My one comes up with this error says  you don't have privileges. I can go and give myself privileges too hard. I think you'll have to Google how to do it.

I, you know, I'm not sure I, I know it can be done. I don't wanna give you kind of Mac hacking advice. So what I end up doing is just save as a template  and just stick it somewhere I can get to. Okay? So it might be your documents  and you have a special folder for it. I'm gonna stick mine on my messy desktop or are you desktop?

Boom. Okay, a two poster. Now if I wanna make a new document, I can go  to file and there's this thing here. It says new from template. Okay? And I can say they're in my special folder, okay?

And they are, where's it? Desktop. Okay? And I just start there and what it does is this a IT uh,  Adobe Illustrated template. You just can't write over it. What it happens is you can't like open it, okay?

You just create a new one from it, okay? And I've got this a two document now. So you might create a few of your own  and just save them, see if they can save into templates. 'cause that's a better folder. Or like me,  if you don't have privileges, you can stick it anywhere. You have privileges like your my documents.

Alright? And the last one is this. Mm, totally useless one. Wow. Down the bottom here. This stuff that people don't notice.

Okay? You can hit what size you want this to be. Okay? In terms of zooming level, you can rotate your screen. You can say, I would like this thing to be 90 degrees. It doesn't change the actual document.

Okay? If I grab my type tool  and type this out, can you see it's still working the way,  the way it kind of just tilted it. Okay? So if you need to like you're tuning your head  for some sort of packaging design  or something, you can actually just temporarily say,  all right, I need this to be, uh, 90 degrees. Okay to read the barcode, do proofreading. Okay?

It doesn't change the print or the file, it's just  Temporarily while we're in Illustrator. And the last one down here,  this I think the default is what tool you're using. So I'm on the type tool if I hit my V  key, I'm on the selection tool. I'm not sure why this is useful. Okay? I'll show you other unuseful things  and you can say actually show the current upward  name or the current tool.

That's what we're on the date and time. The number of V undos, ah, that's exactly what I want to do. I've got two UND undos. Really, I don't know why that's useful. Uh, that's why this is at the end. This is the only one that might be useful.

Uh, the document color profile  and you can see up the top here  that's already got CYK up there. You might find it useful. There might be something in the  future that is actually useful in there. But anyway, that's at the end of the video  because it's weird. Um, alright, that my friends. Is it for kind of like workflow updates?

There's more coming in the course,  but that is good for this group. All right, I hope you found something in there that was, uh,  it's gonna speed up your day. You finally discover how many undoes you've got waiting. Uh, alright, uh, that's it. I'll see you in the next video.