The 3 Best Ways to Merge Paths in Illustrator — Revealed

Illustrator is a great application for combining different shapes to make new ones or bigger compositions.

But how do you merge the paths of two shapes to combine them?

In this guide, I will show you three ways to merge the paths of different objects in Illustrator.

 

Merging Paths In Illustrator Using The Join Command

Press “A” on your keyboard to equip the Sub-selection tool. Next, hold “Shift” and click on each anchor point. Finally, press “COMMAND+J” (MAC) or “Ctrl+J” (Windows) to connect them.

 

Merging Paths In Illustrator Using The Join Command – Step-by-step Guide

Step 1:

Open your Illustrator file. To start, open your document by double-clicking on its corresponding Illustrator file, or if Illustrator is already open, you can go to “File” on the top menu, and then “Open” and choose the file you want to open. To speed things up, you can also use the keyboard shortcut “COMMAND+O” (MAC) or “Ctrl+O” (Windows).

Step 2:

Find and select the Sub-selection tool. Look for the Sub-selection tool, located on the toolbar on the left side of your screen. Alternatively, you can use the keyboard shortcut “A” to quick-select the tool.

Step 3:

Select your anchor points. Press and hold “Shift” and click on the anchor points at the ends of the paths you want to join. The selected anchor points should become highlighted while the rest stay white.

Step 4:

Join your paths. Finally, press “COMMAND+J” (MAC) or “Ctrl+J” (Windows) to join your paths.

 

How to Merge Paths In Illustrator Using The Pathfinder Panel

Press the “V” key on your keyboard to equip the Selection tool. Next, hold “Shift” and click on each object to select them. Go to “Window”, then click on “Pathfinder”. Finally, click on the Unite icon on the Pathfinder panel to merge your paths.

With this method, you can use the Pathfinder Panel to merge the paths of overlapping objects and turn them into a single object. 

As this is generally used to create one to join paths that result in one single shape, this is what we will focus on in the next section below. 

 

How to Merge Paths into one Shape in Illustrator – Step-by-step Guide

 

Step 1:

Find and select the Selection tool. Look for the Selection tool, located on the toolbar on the left side of your screen. Alternatively, you can use the keyboard shortcut “V” to quick-select the tool.

Step 2:

Select your objects. Hold “Shift” and click on each of your objects to select them together. You can also click and drag your cursor over both objects to select them at once.

Step 3:

Open the Pathfinder panel. On the menu at the top of the screen, go to “Window” and click on “Pathfinder”. The Pathfinder panel should pop up on the right side of your screen.

Step 4:

Unite your paths. On the Pathfinder panel, click on the “Unite” icon to merge the paths of your shapes.

 

 

Merging Paths In Illustrator Using The Shape Builder Tool

Press the “V” key on your keyboard to equip the Selection tool. Next, hold “Shift” and click on each object to select them. Press “Shift+M” to equip the Shape Builder tool. Finally, click and drag your cursor over all the lines that overlap between your objects. 

The Shape Builder tool is also great for merging the paths of overlapping objects. 

 

Merging Paths In Illustrator Using The Shape Builder Tool – Quick guide

Step 1:

Find and select the Selection tool. Look for the Selection tool, located on the toolbar on the left side of your screen. Alternatively, you can use the keyboard shortcut “V” to quick-select the tool.

Step 2:

Select your objects. Hold “Shift” and click on each of your objects to select them together. You can also click and drag your cursor over both objects to select them at once.

Step 3:

Find and select the Shape Builder tool. Look for the Shape Builder tool, located on the toolbar on the left side of your screen. Alternatively, you can use the keyboard shortcut “Shift+M” to quick-select the tool. 

Step 4:

Merge your paths. With the Shape Builder tool equipped, click and drag your cursor over all the lines that overlap between your objects.

 

How to Merge Lines in Illustrator

Use the “Direct Selection” (A) tool to select the line’s end anchor points. Press the “Ctrl + J” | “Cmd + J” command to merge the lines into a straight line. Or, press the “Alt + Ctrl + J” | “Option + Cmd + J” command to overlap the selected anchor points in one spot, and then hit the merge command.

 

Method 1: Use the Join Path Tool to Merge Lines in Illustrator

As you probably know, you can’t combine lines in Illustrator in the same way you can combine shapes in Illustrator. The “Pathfinder” and “Shape Builder” tools don’t work to merge lines.

Illustrator has a specific tool called the “Join” tool for merging lines.

To use the “Join” tool, click on the “Direct Selection” (A) tool located on the left-side toolbar.

Next, use the “Direct Selection” (A) tool to select the end anchor points you want to merge.

You can select them one by one by clicking on the anchor point, holding the “Shift” key, and then clicking on the other end anchor point.

Alternatively, you can click, hold, and drag the mouse to make a rectangle selection to select both end anchor points at the same time.

Note that the anchor points won’t be visible until you select them.

Once you have selected the line’s end anchor points, click on the “Connect Selected End Points” button on the toolbar at the top of the screen.

You can also do this by going to “Object > Path > Join” on the menu at the top of the screen. Alternatively, if you prefer shortcuts, you can hit the “Ctrl + J” or “Cmd +J” command.

This method will merge the lines by a straight line connecting the selected anchor points.

Keep in mind that you can only join open paths / lines in Illustrator.

You can’t join closed or compound paths, text, graphs, or live paint groups. You also can’t join lines that are in different layers.

 

Method 2: Use Average Path Tool to Join Lines in Illustrator

If you are going to merge two lines, you may not want to join them with a straight line; instead, you may want to join them at a converging point.

If this is your case, then you need to use the “Average” tool.

To use the Average tool, first, click on the “Direct Selection” (A) tool located on the left-side toolbar.

Note that the anchor points won’t be visible until you select them.

After selecting the anchor points, go to “Object > Path > Average” on the menu at the top of the screen.

Alternatively, you can press the “Alt + Ctrl + J” or “Option + Cmd + J” command to shortcut it. 

On the “Average” pop-up window, select the “Both” option, and then click on “OK” to save.

Once you do this, both end anchor points will overlap in an average position.

Now our anchor points are overlapped, but not merged.

To merge the lines, with the anchor points still selected, click on the “Connect Selected End Points” button on the toolbar at the top of the screen.

Alternatively, press the “Ctrl + J” or “Cmd +J” command.

We need to overlap the lines to be able to merge them in a converging spot.

However, most of the overlapped lines are undesirable. If this is your case, get rid of them by deleting the overlapped lines in Illustrator.

If, after merging the lines, you prefer to have a round join point instead of a sharp one, you can smooth the edges in Illustrator.