Smooth Tool Not Working

Question

I am knew to illustrator but do understand how the smooth tool is supposed to work.  It typically creates a circle and then you run it over the area you want to smooth out and it smoothes out the line.  When I use my smooth tool it just scribbles pencil lines all over the area and does not smooth anything out.  The circle symbol appears but is really small (i thought you could increase it like you can the size of your paint/blob brush).  Maybe that part is normal, but again, it just scribbles lines and does not smooth.  The scribble lines do not stay but only appear as you are trying to smooth the area.  I'm not sure what is wrong and how to get this working like normal.  Thank you for your help!

tromboniator · Accepted Answer

This is the Smooth Tool icon. Clicking it selects the tool, and double-clicking opens a dialog box to set the degree of smoothness.

Instructions for using the tool are here:

https://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/using/simplify_paths.html

Scroll down to Create smooth paths with the Smooth tool.

The gist of it is that the path that you wish to smooth must be selected for the tool to function. And no, the size of the round cursor is not adjustable. The tool only works on the path, and the size of its influence is not changeable. It does not create a rectangle, nor, strictly speaking, does it draw anything, although the path you've followed does show until the click is released.

Peter

A New Earth · Answer

I am having the same problem. From the YouTube videos that I've seen the smooth tool is supposed to draw a rectangle over the line that needs smoothing? When I use the smooth tool, the cursor appears as a small circle (like a brush), and it just draws a line that disappears as soon as the mouse button is released. In the picture below, the blue line is the smooth tool in action.

I am using Windows 10, Ai CC 2020.

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