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About this lesson
How to toggle between fill and stroke and how to change the settings for each.
Exercise files
Download this lesson’s related exercise files.
Fill vs Stroke - Instructions.docx58.9 KB Fill vs Stroke - Exercise.ai
1.1 MB Fill vs Stroke - Exercise Solution.ai
1.6 MB
Quick reference
Fill vs Stroke
How to toggle between fill and stroke and how to change the settings for each.
When to use
When you want to add a fill or a stroke color to any of your text, shapes, or objects in Adobe Illustrator.
Instructions
- Begin by opening the 'Fill vs Stroke - Exercise.ai' file.
- Select your Ellipse Tool by pressing 'L' on the keyboard or by clicking and holding your cursor over the Shape Tool icon in the toolbar.
- Hold down the Shift Key and click and drag out a circle on your canvas.
- Press 'D' on the keyboard to fill your circle with the default colors - a white fill with a black stroke.
- Double click on the fill color and use the color slider dialog box to choose a fill color.
- Press the 'X' key to toggle and switch over to your stroke color.
- Select the Color Panel from the right side of the Illustrator interface and use this slider to pick out a stroke color.
- Press Shift + X on the keyboard to toggle back and forth so that your fill and stroke colors are swapped.
Hints & tips
- In addition to using the Color Panel or double clicking and using the color slider to choose a color, you can also use the Eyedropper Tool (I) to sample colors from other elements in your design.
- You can copy and paste hex values if you want to use the same color for another shape or element.
- 00:04 So far in most of our lessons, we've just been dealing with black and
- 00:08 white shapes using the default colors over here.
- 00:11 But now I'd like to show you guys kind of how you can start to use color.
- 00:15 So the first thing I'm going to do is click on my Shape Tool over here, and
- 00:18 I'm gonna grab the Ellipse Tool.
- 00:20 Now I'm gonna hold down the Shift key and drag out a large circle like this, and
- 00:25 by default that will have a white circle with a black outline.
- 00:29 Now let's say I wanted to add some color to this.
- 00:31 Well, there's a few I could do that, but
- 00:33 the easiest is to double click on this fill color here.
- 00:36 And that's going to bring up our Color Picker dialog box.
- 00:40 So now what I can do is just kind of move around, inside of here,
- 00:45 to go from complete white to complete black, and
- 00:48 basically have control over the entire spectrum or color range.
- 00:52 So as I move throughout,
- 00:54 if I place my cursor on the top right I'll have the highest point of saturation.
- 01:00 And as I move it down, it will get darker, to the left, it will get lighter.
- 01:05 And then as I move it back up to the left,
- 01:07 it will be our brightest and purest form of white.
- 01:12 But if I go somewhere in the middle,
- 01:14 you'll see how I can now have kind of a desaturated or darker color, and this
- 01:19 visual representation is extremely helpful when you're trying to pick out colors.
- 01:23 But not only that, but as you drag the slider,
- 01:25 around you'll notice how all of these settings are changing as well.
- 01:30 And if I move up and down,
- 01:31 you'll see that I can go through the entire spectrum of color.
- 01:36 So it's really helpful because you can kind of see exactly what color you're
- 01:40 picking, as well as all of the values.
- 01:41 So let's just pick this color for now and we'll hit OK.
- 01:45 And now I have basically this solid green fill with a stroke, but
- 01:50 let's say I wanted to have a green outline.
- 01:53 Well I kind of touched on it in the previous section, but
- 01:56 if I hold down Shift and press X, I can toggle between the fill and stroke colors.
- 02:01 Or, I can click on this arrow here that points left and down,
- 02:04 to swap the fill in stroke.
- 02:07 All right, so that's the basic way to just kind of add color to a shape.
- 02:12 Now, if I make this my stroke color, I can then double click on the stroke color and
- 02:16 I can change it.
- 02:18 So I can make it really any color I want, I can make it orange.
- 02:22 Right, and then we can swap it again, and that's basically how you can add a fill,
- 02:27 or a stroke color.
- 02:29 Now, another thing that you may notice,
- 02:30 is up here in our panels we have the color box, so
- 02:33 this is another place where I can come in and easily color drop, or sample colors.
- 02:40 And even though you're not noticing the color changing on the fill,
- 02:44 it's because the color is changing on the stroke.
- 02:48 So let me swap these, so that now you can kind of see what's happening.
- 02:53 Okay, but if I want to toggle back and forth between my fill and stroke,
- 02:57 instead of just pressing Shift and X to swap the two,
- 03:00 I can just press X to go back and forth between my stroke and my fill.
- 03:03 All right, so now that I have my solid color in front,
- 03:07 I can use the Eyedropper Tool to sample any of these other colors.
- 03:12 And right here it's going to show me the hexadecimal value, or
- 03:16 basically a web color as I move through.
- 03:20 So again I can swap these.
- 03:24 And I can choose between the fill and the stroke that I want to change.
- 03:30 So those are some of the keyboard shortcuts, and the different ways that you
- 03:35 can sample colors, either by using the Color Picker option from the panels on
- 03:39 the right, or by double clicking it and adding or choosing a color that way.
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