How to Use the Join Tool in Adobe Illustrator

Once you’re on your way creating your masterpiece in Adobe Illustrator, you might find yourself with a few leftovers. For example, you created a few shapes and what not, but you now have a bunch of individual shapes that you would like to treat as one. Sure, you can group them, but it’s often better to join them into a single shape. That’s where the Join Tool can help you.

The Join Tool is used to connect the ends of open paths to create closed paths. It trims the excess lines from overlapping paths, making it particularly useful for when you want to create more detailed graphical representations with precision, and when you want to clean up illustrations.

It’s important to note that only objects of the same type can be joined. For example, you can’t join a text object with a shape or a line object. However, multiple objects of the same type can easily be joined into a single shape.

There are several ways to use the join tool in Adobe Illustrator. A couple of them are shown below.

Using the Join Tool in Adobe Illustrator

1. You may need to start by adding the Join Tool to your Basic Toolbar. Click on the Edit Toolbar icon (three dots) at the bottom of the Basic Toolbar, then click and drag the Join tool to the Basic Toolbar.
   
   
   
   
   
2. With a drawing open, use the Selection Tool to select the strokes or edges that you want to join.
3. Select the Join Tool and click and drag to draw a line to connect the ends of two paths at their intersection point.
   
   
   
   

After selecting this option, illustrator will combine the selected strokes or edges into a single object. If they don’t join correctly, you can make further adjustments using editing tools such as the Pen tool or the Direct selection tool.

The method above is great for creating compound shapes. These consist of two or more objects; each assigned a shape mode. Compound shapes make it easy to create complex shapes because you can precisely manipulate the shape mode, stacking order, shape, location, and appearance of each path included.

Connecting and Trimming Paths without the Join Tool

1. With a drawing open, select the Selection tool to select the strokes or edges that you want to join.
2. From the top menu, select Object > path > Join.

This method is a good one for doing some clean ups of objects that just need a little finesse.

Conclusion

The Join tool in Illustrator‍ is an efficient way to combine and merge shapes and strokes into a single object. You can use this tool to create more complex designs and shape your compositions quickly and easily. Don’t forget to experiment with different combinations of shapes to obtain unique and creative results in your design projects.