Toolbar in Illustrator on the desktop

When you open a document in Illustrator, a toolbar appears at the left of the screen that contains various tools to create your artwork.

Illustrator provides the following types of toolbar:

• Basic: This toolbar is displayed by default when Illustrator is launched. It includes a selective set of tools that you frequently need while working on Illustrator. To view the complete list of tools, select the Edit Toolbar (...) icon displayed at the bottom of the Basic toolbar. The All Tools drawer appears listing all the tools available in Illustrator.

• Advanced: This toolbar includes all the tools available in Illustrator. To switch from the Basic toolbar to Advanced, do one of the following:
  • Select Window > Toolbars > Advanced.
  • Select Advanced in the flyout menu of the drawer.

(For MENA locales) If you are not able to view the MENA Type tools in the Basic toolbar, which is displayed by default, do one of the following to use these tools:

• Open the All Tools drawer of the Basic toolbar by selecting the Edit Toolbar button and drag the MENA Type tools from the drawer to the toolbar.
• Open the Advanced toolbar.

Work with the toolbar

Select a tool in the toolbar

To select a tool, do one of the following:

• Click a tool in the toolbar. If there is a small triangle at a tool’s lower-right corner, hold down the mouse button to view the hidden tools, and then click the tool you want to select.

• Hold down Alt (Windows) or Option (macOS), and then click a tool to cycle through and select hidden tools.

• Press the tool’s keyboard shortcut. The keyboard shortcut is displayed in its tool tip. For example, you can select the Move tool by pressing the V key.

To hide tool tips, choose Edit > Preferences > General (Windows) or Illustrator > Preferences > General (macOS), and deselect Show Tool Tips.

View tool options

Some tools in the toolbar have options that appear in the Properties panel. Additionally, you can also double-click a tool in the toolbar to view and change the settings for that tool.

Move the toolbar

You can move the toolbar by dragging its title bar.

View the toolbar in double-stack or single-column

Click the double-arrow on the title bar to toggle between the single-column and double-stack view of the toolbar.

Hide the toolbar

To show or hide the toolbar, do one of the following:

• Select Window > Toolbars.
• Click the close button on the title bar.

Customize the toolbar

You can customize a toolbar by moving tools between the toolbar and the drawer. You can add more tools from the drawer to the toolbar or remove tools from the toolbar.

The tools can be added, removed, or rearranged in the toolbar only when the drawer is open. The toolbar is locked for editing when the drawer is closed.    

Add and remove tools

You can add one tool or multiple tools together as a group from the All tools drawer to the toolbar.

To add one tool at a time to the toolbar, drag the tool and drop it at the divider line between the tools.

To remove a tool from the toolbar, drag the tool from the toolbar and drop it anywhere in the drawer. The tool is automatically added to the category to which it belongs.

To go back to the original settings, select Reset in the flyout menu of the drawer.

Add multiple tools as a group

You can select multiple tools from the drawer, irrespective of the categories they belong to, and add them as one group to the toolbar:

The icon for the tool you select first is displayed in the toolbar.

Similarly, to remove multiple tools together, you can select them using the Shift key and drag them from the toolbar to the drawer.

Change tool pointers

The pointer for most tools matches the tool’s icon. Each pointer has a different hotspot, where an effect or action begins. With most tools, you can switch to precise cursors, which appear as cross hairs centered on the hotspot, and provide for greater accuracy when working with detailed artwork. Do one of the following:

• Choose Edit > Preferences > General (Windows) or Illustrator > Preferences > General (macOS), and select Use Precise Cursors.
• Press Caps Lock on the keyboard.

Show or hide controls

You can show or hide the following controls in the toolbar by selecting their icons in the Show section displayed at the bottom of the drawer:

• Fill Stroke controls
• Coloring controls
• Draw Mode controls
• Screen Mode controls

Change drawing modes and screen modes from the toolbar

Select the Drawing Modes icon at the bottom of the toolbar to change the drawing mode from Draw Normal () to Draw Behind () or Draw Inside ().

Additionally, you can also change the screen mode by selecting the Change Screen Mode icon () at the bottom of the toolbar and choosing the desired screen mode.

Create and manage toolbars

Do the following to create your own customized toolbars:

• In the drawer of the toolbar, choose New Toolbar in the flyout menu.
• Select Window > Toolbars > New Toolbar. 

After you provide a name and select OK, a blank toolbar is created. Select the Edit Toolbar button to open the drawer and add tools to the toolbar.

Manage toolbars

When you have multiple toolbars, do the following to manage them:

What's next?

We've got you started on how to customize and manage the toolbar. Take a step forward and learn about all the brushes, default keyboard shortcuts, and tools in Illustrator that will help you easily illustrate your ideas on the artboard.

Got a question or an idea?