How To Make A Triangle in Illustrator | The Complete Guide

• March 28, 2020
• Nick Saporito
• 1 comment

Figuring out how to make a triangle in Illustrator can be tricky because, unlike other shapes, there’s no dedicated tool for it. There’s a tool for making rectangles, circles and ellipses, and even stars. However, there’s no triangle tool, but that’s okay because we can use the tools meant for other shapes with just as much ease.

The following is a brief overview of how we will approach making a triangle in Illustrator. I would recommend watching the video tutorial below if you’d like a more in-depth, easier to follow lesson:

How To Make A Triangle in Illustrator

The first step is to the grab the Polygon Tool. You probably won’t immediately see it in your toolbar because it’s hidden within the Rectangles Tool, so click and hold on the Rectangles Tool icon to bring up a fly out menu that displays various other shapes to choose from.

Select Polygon Tool and click on your canvas once. This will bring up the polygon settings menu.

Leave the Radius input at whatever value is already there, but make sure you set the Sides input to 3. We’ll technically be creating a 3-sided polygon as opposed to a triangle, but it’s all the same.

Once you click OK, an equilateral triangle will be generated on your canvas. An equilateral triangle is a triangle in which all three sides are equal in length.

Isosceles Triangles

An isosceles triangle is a triangle in which only 2 of the sides are equal in length. If you’d like to make your triangle into an isosceles triangle, simple grab the Selection Tool (keyboard shortcut: V) and click and drag on the edges to resize them to your preferences.

Scalene Triangles

A scalene triangle is a triangle in which none of the three sides are equal in width. If you’d like to further edit your triangle into a scalene triangle, you can do so by grabbing the Direct Selection Tool (keyboard shortcut: A) and clicking and dragging each individual corner to set that at your desired angle. You can also drag entire sides rather than just the corners.

How To Make Right Angle Triangles

A right triangle is a triangle in which one of the corners is at a 90 degree angle. Making right triangles in Illustrator requires a different approach than making the standard types of triangles outlined above.

To make a right triangle in Illustrator, grab the Rectangles Tool (keyboard shortcut: M) then hold Shift on your keyboard and click and drag on the canvas to make a perfectly symmetrical square.

Now grab the Direct Selection Tool (keyboard shortcut: A) and click and drag over one of the corners of the square to select it, then click the Remove selected anchor points icon in the menu at the top of your toolbar.

The icon looks something like this…

This will delete one of the corners of the square, leaving you with a right triangle.

How To Make A Rounded Triangle in Illustrator

To make a rounded triangle in Illustrator, simply follow the any of the previous steps to make a standard triangle, then grab the Direct Selection Tool (keyboard shortcut: A) and grab one of the live corners to make the corners round.

Live corners are a handy feature in Illustrator that allows you to make sharp corners rounded. They also allow you to determine the radius of the rounded corner. They can be identified by the small blue circles within the inner padding of each corner.

Clicking and dragging on one of the live corners will allow you to make a rounded triangle.

And those are the basics of how to make a triangle in Illustrator. If you have any further questions simple leave a comment below. As always, thanks for watching!

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