How to Delete Handles in Illustrator

Adobe Illustrator's handles enable you to manipulate the shape of bezier curves. These handles project from any anchor point that joins at least one curved line segment to another segment. Each handle includes a direction line with a dot-shaped direction point at its end. Although you'll see these control lines when you select and manipulate the shape and curvature of your artwork, they're otherwise invisible on screen, and never show up when you view or print your final artwork. Deleting direction handles requires changing the shape of line segments joined at the anchor point that displays the handles.

Instructions

1. Choose the Selection tool from the Adobe Illustrator toolbox. Select the object whose handles you want to eliminate.

2. Choose the Convert Anchor Point tool from the Adobe Illustrator toolbox. Click on an anchor point whose direction handles you want to remove. Illustrator converts any curved line segments that join at that anchor point into straight lines, thereby removing the need for and presence of direction handles.

3. Evaluate your artwork after you've reshaped some of its curves into straight line segments to delete direction handles. Choose "Undo" from the Edit menu if you're unhappy with your results.

Tips & Warnings

• Drag direction handles by their direction points to reshape curves.

• You may be able to reshape your objects to retain a slight curvature and thus remove the need to eliminate direction handles from their anchor points.

• To delete both an anchor point and its handles, select the anchor point with the Direct Selection tool and press the "Delete" key. This creates an opening in the path. To delete the anchor point without creating an open path, choose the Delete Anchor Point tool from the Adobe Illustrator toolbox and click on the anchor point.

• While you can create the appearance of curves using a large number of short straight lines, the resulting artwork presents much greater complexity than if it were made up of a small number of curves.

References

• Adobe Systems: Using Adobe Illustrator CS5
• "The Adobe Illustrator CS5 Wow! Book"; Sharon Steuer; 2010
• "Adobe Creative Suite 5 Design Premium All-in-One for Dummies"; Jennifer Smith, et al.; 2010
• "Illustrator CS5 for Windows and Macintosh Visual QuickStart Guide"; Elaine Weinmann, et al.; 2011