Tools Panel

Tools Panel

The Tools panel contains selection tools, tools for drawing basic shapes, path-drawing and editing tools, transformation tools, text editing tools, navigation tools, and object formatting tools. By default, the Tools panel is docked under the Control panel. All tools are found in the Tools panel, located along the left side of your document window.

If you place the cursor over any tool in the Tools panel without clicking, a tooltip appears displaying the tool’s name and a keyboard shortcut in parentheses.

You can activate a tool by clicking its icon, or by typing its assigned keyboard shortcut (which is included in the tooltip).

The first thing that you should note about the Tools panel is that not all tools are visible; many are hidden. Look closely and you will see that ten tools have small white triangles in the bottom -right corner. These triangles indicate that other tools are hidden behind them.

To access hidden tools, point to the visible tool in the Tools panel, then press and hold the mouse button; this will reveal a fly- out menu of hidden tools. The small white square to the left of a tool name in the fly-out menu indicates the tool that is currently visible in the Tools panel.