How To Join Curves In Affinity Designer

Let’s say you’re working with a couple of objects in Affinity Designer. Both of them are paths with defined stroke properties, and you want to combine them together. This is a pretty common task when working with vectors, and Affinity Designer makes it as easy as any other application. In this lesson we’ll be going over how to join curves in Affinity Designer so that two separate paths can become a single path.

In short, the way to join curves in Affinity Designer is to use the Node Tool to select the two nodes you’d like to join together, then click Join Curves button in the tool settings menu towards the top of the screen.

Let’s have a closer look.

Join Curves In Affinity Designer

To join curves in Affinity Designer, select the objects you want to combine and grab the Node Tool. With the Node Tool enabled, click the button in the tool settings menu towards the top of the screen that reads “Join Curves” when you hover your cursor over it.

This is a rather simple process, but if you’re new to the software then you may need more detailed instructions. The following video tutorial will walk you through the entire process in less than 2 minutes:

Let’s go over this step-by-step…

Table of Contents Step 1: Select both objects Step 2: Grab the Node Tool and select two nodes to join Step 3: Click the Join Curves button in the tool settings menu

Step 1: Select both objects

The first thing you must do before you can join curves in Affinity Designer is make sure that you have the two objects you’d like to join selected.

Use the Move Tool (keyboard shortcut: V) to select both objects:

You can select multiple objects by holding the Shift key while clicking on them, or by clicking and dragging a selection around them.

Step 2: Grab the Node Tool and select two nodes to join

The tool that we’ll be using to join the two separate curves together is the Node Tool, which can be accessed in the tool menu on the left-hand side of your screen:

Alternatively, you can use the keyboard shortcut, which is the letter A.

With the Node Tool enabled, select the two nodes on each object that you’d like to join together:

This is the point where the curves will be joined. Do not worry if there is a gap between them — it will be filled in automatically.

As is the case with selecting multiple objects, you can select multiple nodes by:

1. Holding the Shift key while clicking on them, or…
2. Clicking and dragging to create a selection around them

You can verify that you have the correct nodes selected by their fill color. Selected nodes will be blue in color.

Step 3: Click the Join Curves button in the tool settings menu

All you have to do now to join the curves together is click the Join Curves button in the tool settings menu towards the top of your screen:

It’s the second button from the right. If you hover your cursor over each button, a label will populate telling you what they do.

Once you click that button, the two nodes will be joined, and what was once two separate curves is now a single, combined curve:

What’s more, the software automatically filled in the gap between the two nodes with a straight line.

If you need that line to be curved, or to follow a specific contour, then you can do so clicking and dragging the line to curve it, and by using the adjustment handles to adjust it further.

Conclusion

This is one of those areas where having experience working with other vector applications in the past comes in handy, as the workflow used to join curves in Affinity Designer is pretty consistent. If you know how to do this sort of thing with Inkscape or Illustrator, then you pretty much already know how to do so with Designer. It’s just a matter of locating the tool and the proper setting.

If you have any questions or need clarification on anything covered in this tutorial then leave a comment below.

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