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What is the best way to smooth a path?

Advocate ,
Jun 23, 2016 Jun 23, 2016

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After creating a path that has many anchor points, what is the best way to smooth that path?

I know about the Smooth Tool under the Pencil options. Does this do the same thing? I hope there is a more efficient way.

I am using Adobe Illustrator cc 2015

Thanks for your help.

2016-06-23_14-52-01.png

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correct answers 1 Correct answer

Community Expert , Jun 23, 2016 Jun 23, 2016

You could select the object and try Object > Path > Simplify.

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Community Expert ,
Jun 23, 2016 Jun 23, 2016

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You could select the object and try Object > Path > Simplify.

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Advocate ,
Jun 23, 2016 Jun 23, 2016

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Thank you Jeff! That worked great!

By the way, you and I are connected on LinkedIn!

Have a great day.

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Community Expert ,
Jun 23, 2016 Jun 23, 2016

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Glad to help!

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Community Expert ,
Jun 23, 2016 Jun 23, 2016

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I wish Adobe Illustrator would give users the option to delete extraneous anchor points on paths (such as those that occur in auto-tracing) without deleting parts of the path itself. The "simplify" option is an arguably crude tool that affects the path on a global basis. Sometimes only a small portion of a path needs clean-up work. I can't delete errant points on a path with the Direct Selection tool without deleting segments of the path.

One of Illustrator's rivals, CorelDRAW, has a similar "simplify" command to clean up junk points on a path. However, one can use the "shape" tool to individually select anchor points and delete them. When the points are deleted the overall path still remains. CorelDRAW does its best to maintain the original shape of the path, but with junk points deleted the resulting path will be more smooth. If parts of the path itself need to be deleted the shape tool can be used to quickly break apart the path via selected anchor points.

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Community Expert ,
Jun 23, 2016 Jun 23, 2016

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Direct select the points and click the "delete path points" button in the control panel. This will just delete them.

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Explorer ,
May 10, 2021 May 10, 2021

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Um, won't that delete the path segments as well?  Is there a solution that will remove [most of] the points but preserve the overall shape of the path?

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New Here ,
Jul 22, 2021 Jul 22, 2021

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If you select the pen tool [p], then hover over an existing anchor point, the little tooltip will update from an "asterisk" [*] to a "minus sign" [-] next to the tool graphic.

 

From there, just click on the undesirable anchor point, and it will remove the anchor while maintaining the integrity of the path between the flanking anchor points.

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