Reshaping Tool (keyboard shortcut: R)
The reshaping tool is used to reshape paths you have drawn with any of the other path creation tools. It can do that by adding or deleting points, moving points, converting points between sharp points and curved points, and rotating, scaling, or skewing groups of points. It can operate on points from multiple paths at once.
Selecting paths
Select path objects with the Reshaping tool by clicking on them, or shift-clicking on them to extend a selection. You can select all paths in the current view with select all. When you have selected paths, they will show handles on all of their points. Sharp points are shown with a square handle while curve points are shown with a circular handle.
One-click operations on points and path
Adding a point
To add a point to a path, position the cursor over the dashed green line between two handles. The mouse will show an add point cursor. Click to add a point at that location. If the path segment you click on is between two sharp points, a new sharp point will be created by default. If either of the surrounding points is a curve point, a new curve pint will be created. You can override this default by holding down the Option key. The add point cursor has a different appearance to show whether it will add a sharp point of a curve point.
Add point cursor showing whether a curve point (left) or a sharp point (right) will be added
When you click to create the new point you can start dragging it immediately.
Deleting a point
To delete a single point on a path, hold down the Command key and click on the point. This does not require the point to be selected first, and does not affect other points. (You can delete multiple selected points at once with the delete key. but if no points are selected, the delete key deletes whole selected paths.)
Opening a closed path
If you have a closed path you want to open, hold down the Command key and click the mouse on a line between two points. That segment of the path will be removed and the two surrounding points will become endpoints. The mouse will show a scissor cursor when it is positioned so that clicking will open a path.
The open path (scissor) cursor, and the result of opening a path
Splitting a path
A command-click on a path segment of an open path can also be used to split a path, turning it into a compound path. The compound path can be changed to two separate paths with the Ungroup command in the Objects menu.
Closing an open path
There are two ways to close an open path. You can drag one endpoint over the other with the reshaping tool, or you can extend the path and close it with the Bezier Pen tool or the Freehand Drawing tool .
Converting a point
You can convert a sharp point to a curve point or a curve point to a sharp point by Option-clicking on it. The cursor will show an arrow with either a curve or a sharp angle next to it to indicate what you will get by clicking. Option-clicking a handle does not require it to be selected and only affects the handle clicked, not any other handles even if they are selected.
Selecting handles
Handles within a path must be selected to perform a number of additional operations on them. Unselected handles are hollow (a green outline with a white fill) while selected handles are shown in solid green. You can select a handle by clicking on it. You can select additional handles without deselecting what is already selected by Shift-clicking on them. You can also deselect a handle without affecting any others by shift-clicking on it.
You can select many handles in an area quickly using marquee selection. This is done by clicking on a background area and dragging out a rectangle. Any handles that the rectangle touches are selected. If you hold down the Shift key when you start the marquee drag, It will add handles you hit to the existing selection. Note that to start a marquee drag, the marquee cursor must be shown.
The marquee cursor shown with the reshaping tool
If the marquee cursor is not shown, the mouse is over the path frame or fill, a handle, or some other object. Clicking in these locations will perform other actions like selecting objects, adding points, or dragging objects. You can force the marquee cursor if the mouse is over the object's fill or another object by holding down the Command key. However, the Command key has other functions if the mouse is over a handle or a line of the path, so look for the marquee cursor to be sure you will get marquee selection if you click.
If you have more than one point selected on a selected path, a transformation frame will be shown surrounding the selected points. This frame adds handles for scaling, rotating, or skewing the selected points.
A transformation frame around selected path points
Dragging points
The simplest way to reshape a path is by dragging points. Point dragging operates on all selected points at once, even points from multiple paths. You can select a point and drag it in a single click-drag operation.
Transforming selected points
The blue transformation frame and its associated blue handles can be used to scale, rotate, or skew the selected points around a transformation origin. The origin is represented by a blue crosshair in a circle, which defaults to to the center of the transformation frame but which can be dragged to any other location in the editing area. For all three transformation operations, the location of the transform origin affects how the transformation is applied. For example, when rotating selected points, they all rotate around the transformation origin.
Scaling selected points
You can scale selected points around the origin by clicking in any of the eight solid square handles on the transformation frame. The handles in the middle of the four sides scale in one dimension only. The handles on the corners scale in two dimensions. By default, two dimensional scaling is proportional, but if you hold down the Command key you can scale non-proportionally, meaning the horizontal and vertical axes will be scaled by different amounts.
Rotating selected points
You can rotate selected points around the origin by positioning the mouse on the round rotation handle sticking out from the bottom-right corner of the selection frame. You can tell if rotation will happen if the mouse displays the rotation cursor.
The rotation cursor on the rotation handle indicating that clicking and dragging will rotate selected points
Skewing selected points
You can skew selected points by positioning the mouse on one of the two parallelogram-shaped skew handles sticking out of the right side and the bottom of the frame. The mouse cursor will change to indicate horizontal or vertical skew. Horizontal and vertical skew produce different results. Skewing has an effect like turning a rectangle into a parallelogam. When skewing selected points, all points move in one dimension only, horizontally or vertically. Points that are on the same side of the origin as the location you clicked move in the same direction the mouse is moved in that dimension, while points on the other side move in the opposite direction.
The skewing cursor on the vertical skewing handle indicating that vertical skewing will take place