Dashed Lines (updated for CS4)

1. Making dashes might not be like the craziest effect to do on Illustrator, but you will be suprised by the number of e-mails I get about how to do it. First of all, I am going to draw out a circle on Illustrator. Of course yours doesn’t have to be a circle. Select the shape first then go to step 2 of this tutorial.

2. Now go to your STROKE panel and you should see settings like this. If you don’t see the STROKE panel in your document then go to WINDOW > STROKE and it should appear right away.

3. Now what you have to do is click on the DASHED LINE box and check it off. And then you can adjust the dash length and the gap length in the boxes below. You can get really specific or just repeat the numbers.

4. I know in this screen shot the dashes don’t look even but it’s just the quality of the image. That’s all you have to do to make dashed lines. Now all you have to do is import that into Photoshop and use it on your website or other graphic design projects.

5. Now if you want to edit this, you can. Go to OBJECTS > PATHS > OUTLINE STROKE. This will turn the stroke into an editable object with anchor points.

6. Now get the white arrow tool and select the area where you want to edit or remove.

7. As you can see in this screenshot, only part of the dashed circle gets selected.

8. My final result of picking and choosing where I want to delete.

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