Shape Builder Tool in Adobe Illustrator CS5

Today we discuss a very helpful feature tool of Adobe Illustrator CS5. This Shape Builder Tool (Shift+M) reduce lots of efforts and steps to create any shape or vector. In this tutorial we will show you how to use this tool and how can we reduce steps rather than Pathfinder.

Step 1:

First of all we need to create new document from File > New. Now optimize the setting of document as your desire.

Step 2:

Our next step is to create some shapes, here I use a square, circle and rectangle to demonstrate how to use Shape Builder Tool (Shift+M). After creating shape, bring all them together in one place.

Step 3:

In this step we will use Shape Builder Tool (Shift+M). Now select all these shapes and click on Shape Builder Tool (Shift+M) and take your curser over the shapes. You will see hover over effect on these shapes.

Step 4:

While selecting all shapes, click at one shape and bring it to another shape. You can see that both areas are selected as you clearly see in the following image.

Step 5:

Here you can see the result of above image, you can see that both areas (square and upper area of triangle) are combined. Similarly you can combine different shapes with one another easily.

Step 6:

If you want to delete/subtract any portion of any shape, just hold the ALT key and click on the shape area. Its result is shown in the below image.