Illustrator Tip #1: Dotted Lines in Illustrator

By Tony Soh

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You can get interesting dotted lines with your Stroke Palette. Open up your Stroke Palette from Window>Stroke. Draw a line and select it. Enter the dash and gap value as shown. Experiment with different dash and gap values for different effects. To create a square dotted line, make sure the dash and weight is the same value.

So how about circle dotted lines? Here’s the trick. Select the Round Cap and make sure dash is set to 0 pt. For gap enter a value twice the stroke weight. This will give you a nice circle dotted lines.

Bonus Tip: To expand the dotted lines, you realise Object>Expand doesn’t work. Choose Object>Flatten Transparency to expand it. You can now fill each dots with different colors.

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About The Author: Tony Soh

Hi. I'm the founder of Vector Diary. Illustrator is my passion and I have written numerous tutorials on illustrator helping people learn illustrator. My most popular tutorial on learn illustrator has been a hit. It makes learning illustrator so easy and has benefited more than 20,000 people worldwide. Also, I've revealed some of my secret techniques in the premium tutorials. So don't forget to check it out!

Read all articles writen by this author

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+Add Comment34 Comments

1. 
   Raadheesh September 16th

   what a wonderful Site and Tutorials !

2. 
   Raymond Selda January 2nd

   Exactly what I needed! Thank you for this tip!

3. 
   Russell Wilson February 20th

   Great tutorial! Thanks!

4. 
   Daniel Matias March 6th

   Amazing! Not only the info, but the way you explain it! Thanks from Madrid!
   All the site…wonderfull!

5. 
   adzril March 18th

   nice! its been a long time to search a simple and useful tutorial like this.

6. 
   O April 1st

   Exactly what i was looking for.

7. 
   lokate April 8th

   thanks so much. this is such a help!

8. 
   Means A Lot April 16th

   Thanks so much for the tip! I was going crazy trying to figure out how to do a dotted line.

9. 
   Kelly Sexton April 18th

   Gosh! Thank you! I felt like a retard not being able to figure it out. You would think it would just be a line style or some other obvious application considering the simplicity…

10. 
    e May 6th

    cheers!
    was driving me crazy!
    just what i needed!

11. 
    Leks June 4th

    Thanks!

12. 
    Kim Young June 25th

    Thanks!

13. 
    Jazz October 4th

    Thanks! I needed a refresher after not using Illustrator for so long!

14. 
    Chaos January 5th

    you’d think something like this would be easy to do…. thank you so much your site is a great resource.

15. 
    Serendipity January 11th

    Finally! Such a simple task, thanks for explaining the post!

16. 
    kelebra March 4th

    How to fill dots with different colors?
    Flatten transparency doesn’t work to me. I make circle with ellipse tools and nothing, all the dots change color

17. 
    yvette April 29th

    Just stumbled on your site. You and your tutorials and your wonderful freebies are awesome! Thanks so much for sharing your knowledge!

18. 
    IHN May 4th

    Thank You Tony. Just what i needed , saved my time. thanks again.

19. 
    Flek June 19th

    Thank you soooo much!

20. 
    kong daret September 5th

    I’m Kong daret. I live in Cambodia.
    Please! I want Books Designer to you.
    1.adobe Illustrator
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    you can attach mail to me.
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21. 
    adie4eyes October 13th

    really help me alot.. thank u soo muach

22. 
    Rahim November 24th

    Thanks Dude>> nice one…

23. 
    ruthie December 3rd

    thanks saved me the hassle of trying to figure this out on my own!

24. 
    Cristian December 8th

    You’re rigth. Thank you so much.

25. 
    musa December 15th

    thanx……..

26. 
    Sukiben February 3rd

    Mind blowing website

27. 
    mukesh sharma August 3rd

    hi Tony Soh, Thank you for illustrator tutorial. Not only the info, but the way you explain it! All the site…wonderfull ! mukesh sharma

28. 
    Balagopal August 16th

    Thanks for this great tut.

29. 
    asif September 20th

    Thanks. A perfect solution!!!

    Thanks a lot.

30. 
    Courtney October 25th

    Thank you! This was SUPER helpful for figuring out how to make a dotted line!

31. 
    Auto Accessories wholesale December 18th

    Your http://www.winsomechina.com/news/1 is excellent , i have been looking for this information everywhere.

32. 
    Urviho December 20th

    Nice tip Thanks

33. 
    ram December 28th

    simple and better idea

34. 
    affordable stock images January 14th

    I never thought creating dotted line would be so simple! Thanks for this sweet post!