How to Use the Magic Wand Tool in Adobe Illustrator

You have become comfortable with Photoshop, and you want to try something in Illustrator. A lot of the tools look the same, but you go to select some pixels with the magic wand tool, and you don't get the marching ants you were hoping for. Apply your Photoshop knowledge to Illustrator and get started with the magic wand tool.

Instructions

1. Make a few filled and stroked shapes on your document, for practice. Use the rectangle tool or one of the other shape tools.

2. Click on the magic wand tool in the toolbar. Click on your shape. Notice that the path is now highlighted. Illustrator doesn't use marching ants the way you might be accustomed to from Photoshop.

3. Double-click on the magic wand tool in the toolbar. A menu will pop up.

4. Expand that menu. Look for a small icon in the upper-right corner of the menu which will let you expand it.

5. Check one of the boxes such as "stroke" or "fill color." Depending on which box you check, the magic wand tool will now select everything in the layer that shares that attribute or characteristic. If you have a bunch of red and blue rectangles, and you check "fill color" and click on a red rectangle, all of the red rectangles will be selected.

Tips & Warnings

• Hold down the "Shift" key to highlight more than one type of object at once.

• You will not get marching ants--that's only in Photoshop!

Resources

• Read this Article in Spanish