Find and use the Scissors tool for Adobe Illustrator to un-Join two paths

By Alexis Blackshear on December 18, 2011 in software

When you have joined a path in Adobe Illustrator CS5, you might need to change it later. Take a look at this botched join between two lines.

Two paths improperly joined

The horizontal line of this join does not extend far enough.

A botched join for Illustrator CS5: We'll show you how to fix this using the Scissors tool.

This path is supposed to be a square corner, but the illustrator messed it up. However, the two points are joined using the Adobe Illustrator Join command, for which there is no Unjoin command to reverse it.

Find the Scissors tool for Illustrator

This Adobe Illustrator How To guide shows you how to find the Scissors tool in Adobe Illustrator CS 5. Click the Eraser and then choose the Scissors. The Knife tool is in the same cluster.

Here's how to find and select the Scissors tool

The Scissors tool for Illustrator is in the same cluster as the Eraser and Knife tools.

Cut the points to un-Join the paths

Take the Scissors tool and click on both points in the botched corner. Start with the bottom point.

Here's what we get after the Scissors tool is used on the bottom point of the join.

The lower point of the join is now cut by the Scissors tool.

Now, select the horizontal path using the Direct Select tool.

Use the Direct Select tool for Illustrator to select the horizontal path.

Cut the other point with the Scissors tool. (For the purpose of Adobe Illustrator tutorials, when I say cut it with the tool, I mean that you should place the scissors cursor over the point and left-click on it.) You will now have a small line segment remaining.

A small trimmed segment remains. You can delete it.

After cutting the other point, our How To illustrator is left with a small segment. Delete it.

You can now move each path independently of the other.

Each path can now be adjusted as necessary.

Now you can edit each of the formerly-joined paths.

Create a proper Join

Now, create the corner the way it was intended by overlapping each of the end points. Note: if you have trouble overlapping the points, select both paths and then right click and choose Average. Select Both axes.

Use necessary to align the endpoints if needed.

The Average function can help align the endpoints.

Wrapping it Up

The Join is now complete. In this Illustrator How To tutorial, we demonstrated how to un-Join two paths, adjust them, and then re-Join them. We used the Scissors Tool, the Direct Selection tool, Average and Join.