The eraser slot holds three tools
The rail is grouped, not flat. The eraser slot shows the Eraser by default and carries a small triangle. Click it to open the flyout and you will find Eraser, Scissors and Knife. Your pick sticks: the tool you choose stays in that slot, saved in your browser, so the icon sitting there may not be the one a colleague sees.
Only the Eraser has a working keyboard shortcut. Scissors and Knife are flyout-only, which is a fair trade given how rarely most people reach for them.
Eraser: drag a swath, then choose what the swath does
The Eraser drags a shaped swath across the canvas. What happens where that swath lands depends entirely on the mode buttons in its option bar, and this is the part people skip past.
- Delete objects touched by the eraser Any object the swath touches is removed whole. Graze the corner of a shape and the entire shape goes. Blunt, fast, occasionally exactly right.
- Cut out from objects (the default) Subtracts the swath from the objects it crosses, leaving holes and notches as an even-odd path. The object survives, minus what you painted away.
- Break apart The same subtraction, except that where the cut leaves separated leftovers, each leftover becomes its own object rather than staying part of one path.
Width (1 to 100, default 10) sets the swath size. Thinning, Caps, Tremor and Mass shape the stroke itself: Mass (default 3) lags the swath behind your cursor and steadies a shaky hand, Tremor adds wobble on purpose. A pressure toggle sits alongside and is off by default, so a graphics tablet contributes nothing until you switch it on.
One default catches everybody out. The toggle labelled "Erase EVERY object, not only the selection" is ON. The Eraser ignores your selection and chews through whatever lies under it. Turn it off and select first if you want the rest of the drawing protected.
Scissors: opens a path, removes nothing
Scissors is one click on a path's outline. It cuts the path open at exactly that point. An open subpath becomes two separate paths. A closed subpath is re-opened into a single open path, so clicking a circle gives you an arc that begins and ends where you clicked. Nothing is deleted and no material is lost.
If you click a rectangle or an ellipse rather than a path, the shape is converted to path geometry first. That is how the cut is made, but it means the object stops being a re-editable rectangle with its own width, height and corner radii. Worth knowing before you cut a shape you still want to tweak numerically.
Knife: splits filled shapes and keeps both halves
Knife is a freehand drag. Draw a cut line through filled artwork and every shape the line crosses splits into separate pieces along it. Both sides are kept. The cut has zero width, so nothing is removed and no gap opens up.
Each piece inherits the original style. Slice a red circle down the middle and you get two red half-discs sitting precisely where the circle was, ready to be dragged apart. Reach for Knife when you want the parts, not a hole.
Which one to reach for
- A hole, a bite or a notch taken out of something: Eraser in Cut mode.
- A stroke or a closed shape opened up so you can edit its ends with the Node tool: Scissors.
- Two objects where there was one, with nothing lost: Knife.
- Two objects where there was one, and the cut itself should remove material: Eraser in Break apart mode.
| Keys | Does |
|---|---|
| Shift+E | Eraser |
| V | Select tool, to check what you actually cut |
| F2 | Edit paths by nodes, useful after a Scissors cut |
| Ctrl+Z | Undo |
| Escape | Back out |
Scissors and Knife have no keyboard shortcut. Neither does Live Paint. Open the eraser flyout and pick them.
Common questions
Why did the Eraser delete my whole shape instead of erasing part of it?
You were in Delete mode, which removes any object the swath touches rather than subtracting from it. Check the three mode buttons on the Eraser option bar and switch to Cut, which subtracts the swath and leaves the object standing.
Can I erase one object without disturbing the rest of the drawing?
Yes. Switch off the "Erase EVERY object, not only the selection" toggle on the Eraser bar, then select the object you want to work on. Left on, which is how it ships, the Eraser cuts through everything under the swath regardless of what is selected.
Scissors turned my rectangle into a path. Can I get the rectangle back?
Ctrl+Z restores it. Otherwise no. Shape primitives are converted to path geometry before the cut is made, because you cannot open a rectangle and still have it be a rectangle. If you need the numeric width, height and radii, cut a copy.
Do Scissors and Knife have shortcuts?
No. Shift+E gets you the Eraser. Scissors and Knife are reached through the eraser slot's flyout, and whichever you pick stays in the slot until you swap it back.