20 Great Uses for the Alt/Option Key in Illustrator

The simple trick of holding the Alt/Option key can unlock all kinds of useful and interesting abilities in the Adobe apps, including Illustrator. You probably already know that Option/Alt-dragging an object makes a copy of it. But here are 20 more ways to use Alt/Option to improve your efficiency in Illustrator.

General Use Shortcuts

• To set options when creating something new (except for Actions, Brushes, Swatches, and Symbols panels): Alt/Option-click the New button.

• Delete without confirmation (except for Layers panel): Alt/Option-click the Delete button.

Layer Shortcuts

• To lock/unlock all layers but the selected one: Alt/Option-click lock icon.
• To expand all sublayers to display entire hierarchy in the Layers panel: Alt/Option-click expansion triangle.
• To select all objects on a layer: Alt/Option-click the layer name.
• To show/hide all layers but the selected one: Alt/Option-click eye icon.

Color Shortcuts

• To replace swatch with another: Alt/Option-drag a swatch over another.
• To swap color stops in a gradient: Alt/Option-drag color stop onto another stop.
• To apply swatch color to active (or selected) color stop in a gradient: Alt/Option-click swatch in the Swatches panel.
• To apply a new color to the nonactive fill/stroke (i.e. the one that is not on top in the Tools panel): Alt/Option-click color bar at the bottom of the Color panel.

Transform Shortcuts

• To set origin point and open dialog box when using Rotate tool, Scale tool, Reflect tool, or Shear tool: Alt/Option-click in your document.
• To apply a transformation value and create a new copy of the selected object, type the new values you want in the Transform panel and press Alt+Enter (Windows) or Option+Return (macOS).

Document Shortcuts

• To create a document without opening the New Document dialog box (with the last used new document settings): press Alt+Ctrl+N (Windows) Option+Command+N (macOS).
• To browse files in Adobe Bridge, just add the Alt/Option key to the regular Open shortcut: press Alt+Ctrl+O (Windows) Option+Command+O (macOS).
• To view the document in Pixel Preview mode just add the Alt/Option key to the regular Preview shortcut: press Alt+Ctrl+Y (Windows) Option+Command+Y (macOS).

• To convert between horizontal and vertical guides as you’re dragging a new one from the rulers: Alt/Option-drag the guide.

Drawing Shortcuts

• To switch between the Pen tool and the Convert Anchor Point tool as you’re drawing a path: hold Alt/Option.

• To keep the sides of a star straight as you’re drawing it: hold Alt/Option.
• To create non-uniform widths when using the Width tool: Alt/Option+drag a width marker.
• To view a mask as a grayscale image for easy editing: Alt/Option-click on the mask thumbnail in the Transparency panel.