Home > Drawing shapes and paths > Adding and removing anchor points

Adding and removing anchor points

The Add Anchor Point tool  and Delete Anchor Point tool  in the Toolbox let you add or remove points from a path. To add an anchor point, select the Add Anchor Point tool (or press the equal sign = ) and click a path segment (anywhere that an anchor point doesn't currently exist). The shape of a Bezier path is not affected by adding an anchor point. However, adding an anchor point to a B-spline curve might change the path's shape slightly.

To remove an anchor point along a Bezier or B-spline path, select the Delete Anchor Point tool (or press the hyphen - ) and click. When you remove one or more anchor points with this tool, the shape changes, but the path remains whole (it doesn't split the path). You can also remove anchor points along a complex path with the Smooth Path feature.

Clicking an anchor point in the original path (1) with the Delete Anchor Point tool results in that anchor point being removed from the curve (2)

Tip: You can select the Add Anchor Point and Delete Anchor Point tools automatically whenever the Pen tool is selected. When you place the Pen tool over a segment of a selected path, it changes to to the Add Anchor Point tool. When you place the tool over an anchor point of a selected path, it changes to the Delete Anchor Point tool.