ScisMoving, transforming and arranging
Shortcuts below are written in their macOS form. On Windows and Linux, read ⌘ as Ctrl, ⌥ as Alt and ⇧ as Shift.
Selecting and moving
The Selection Tool (V) picks whole objects, the Direct Selection Tool (A) picks anchor points, and the Group Selection Tool picks one object inside a group and then, on each further click, the group around it. Shift-click adds an object to the selection or drops it again. Drag on empty canvas to marquee, and hold ⇧ to add what the marquee catches.
Drag a selected object to move it. Holding ⌥ leaves a copy behind and drags that instead. Holding ⇧ constrains the move to 45° steps from the constrain angle set in Preferences, and turns off snapping; without ⇧ the selection snaps to nearby edges, centres and angles. Arrow keys nudge by the keyboard increment, ⇧ with an arrow by ten times that, and ⌥ with an arrow nudges a copy.
The selection's bounding box carries eight handles. Drag one to scale; ⇧ keeps the proportions and ⌥ scales about the centre rather than the opposite handle. Just outside a corner the pointer enters the rotation zone: drag there to turn the selection about the box's centre, with ⇧ snapping to 45°. Object › Transform › Reset Bounding Box squares the box up again after a rotation.
The Transform panel and numeric transforms
The Transform panel (⇧F8) shows X, Y, W and H in pixels for the selection; type a value and press Return to set it. Below them, the ⟳ field rotates by an angle and the ⧄ field shears by one, each returning to zero once applied. The Properties panel repeats X/Y/W/H with a rotation field and buttons to flip horizontally or vertically.
Object › Transform holds the numeric commands: Move… (⇧⌘M), Rotate…, Reflect…, Scale… and Shear…, each with a Copy box that applies the change to a duplicate. Transform Each… (⌥⇧⌘D) scales, moves, rotates and reflects every selected object about its own centre. Transform Again (⌘D) repeats the last one.
Rotate, Reflect, Scale and Shear
The Rotate (R), Reflect (O), Scale (S) and Shear tools all work about a reference point, drawn as a small crosshair. It starts at the centre of the selection; click anywhere to move it there, and selecting something else puts it back. Then drag on the canvas to turn, mirror, scale or skew about that point. ⇧ constrains: 45° steps for rotating and reflecting, equal horizontal and vertical for scaling, one axis for shearing. Holding ⌥ during the drag transforms a copy and leaves the original. ⌥-click places the reference point and opens that tool's numeric dialog with the point already set.
The Free Transform tool
The Free Transform Tool (E) puts everything on one bounding box. Drag inside the box to move it, drag a handle to scale, and drag just outside a corner to rotate, with ⇧ snapping to 45°.
A small widget floats beside the box with four buttons, each naming itself when you hover over it: Constrain, Free Transform, Perspective Distort and Free Distort. Constrain makes scaling proportional without holding ⇧ - with it on, ⇧ frees the proportions instead. The two distortion modes leave only the four corner handles.
You can reach the same distortions from the keyboard while staying in Free Transform mode. Hold ⌘ on an edge handle to shear along that edge. Hold ⌘ on a corner to distort it freely, on its own; add ⇧ to constrain the corner's travel to 45°. Hold ⌘⌥⇧ on a corner for perspective, where the neighbouring corner mirrors the drag. Pressing or releasing a modifier part way through a drag switches the action at once, and the name it ends up with - Scale, Shear, Perspective Distort or Free Distort - is what the step is called in the History panel afterwards. Type, placed images and symbol instances cannot be distorted; they are left as they are, and Scissor says so.
The reference point sits in the middle of the box as a crosshair, and you can drag it anywhere - it moves nothing by itself. The box then rotates and scales about it, and it travels with the artwork when you move the selection. Drop it near one of the box's nine points - the corners, the edge midpoints or the centre - and it settles onto that point. Holding ⌥ while scaling ignores a placed reference point and scales about the centre.
Aligning, distributing and arranging
The Align panel (⇧F7) aligns the selection left, centre, right, top, middle or bottom; distributes objects by their tops, centres, bottoms, left edges, centres or right edges; and distributes the space between them vertically or horizontally. The menu beside it chooses whether to align to the selection or to the board. The same six alignments appear under Object › Align.
Object › Arrange moves the selection through the stack: Bring to Front (⇧⌘]), Bring Forward (⌘]), Send Backward (⌘[) and Send to Back (⇧⌘[).
Grouping, locking and hiding
Group (⌘G) and Ungroup (⇧⌘G) collect and release objects; double-clicking a group with the Selection tool steps inside it. Lock › Selection (⌘2) makes objects unpickable until Unlock All (⌥⌘2), and Hide › Selection (⌘3) takes them off the canvas until Show All (⌥⌘3).
Repeats, morphs and envelopes
Object › Repeat makes a live repeat from the selection: Radial…, Grid… or Mirror…. The copies follow the original as you edit it. With a repeat selected, the Properties panel sets instances and radius for a radial repeat, columns, rows and spacing for a grid, and the offset and mirror axis for a mirror. Release turns the copies into ordinary artwork.
The Morph Tool (W) morphs one object into another through a series of in-between steps: click the first, then the second. Clicking a third carries the chain on, and clicking into an existing morph adds that object to it. Object › Morph holds Make (⌥⌘B), Release (⌥⇧⌘B), Morph Options… for the number of steps, the spacing and the orientation, Expand, and Replace Spine, Reverse Spine and Reverse Front to Back. A morph stays live and follows its key objects.
Object › Envelope Distort bends artwork into a shape. Make with Warp… (⌥⇧⌘W) uses one of the warp styles, Make with Top Object (⌥⌘C) uses the frontmost selected shape as the envelope for everything below it, and Make with Mesh… (⌥⌘M) lays a grid of the rows and columns you ask for over the selection. A mesh envelope stays live: switch to the Direct Selection Tool (A) and drag any crossing of the mesh to bend what it holds, as often as you like. Release gives the artwork back as it was along with the envelope shape, and Expand keeps the bend and drops the mesh.
3D from a vector shape
Effect › 3D and Materials turns a flat shape into a solid: Extrude & Bevel gives it depth, Revolve spins a profile into a form, Inflate puffs it up, and Plane tilts it in space. It stays a live effect, so the original path is still there to edit, and the 3D and Materials panel turns the object, sets the light and picks a plastic, matte or metal surface.
Radial, grid and mirror repeats
Object › Repeat makes many copies from one object and keeps them live: edit the original and every copy follows. Radial rings the copies around a centre, Grid lays them in rows and columns, and Mirror reflects them across an axis. Release turns them into ordinary artwork when you are done.
