Contour Commands

Use the panel buttons to break, join, copy, clean, flip, align, and remove overlaps from paths.

Most commands work on the selected nodes. Without a useful node selection, they work on the active contour. Each command is one Illustrator undo step.

Edit Menu

Edit → Copy Vextra Contour copies the current Vextra node or segment selection. It is available while Vextra is editing a path and has something to copy.

Command-C / Ctrl-C does the same, and Command-V / Ctrl-V adds the copied contours to the path you are editing. See Keyboard, Undo & Documents.

First Command Row

Break

Opens a contour at the selected node or nodes, and both new end nodes become sharp.

Smart Corner and G2 settings stay on other nodes wherever they still apply.

Join

Joins selected open ends that can connect. You can also drag one open end onto another with Vextra Editor.

Duplicate

Copies the selected path part in place. The copy becomes another contour inside the current artwork.

Smart Corner

Adds a Smart Corner to the selected sharp nodes. When the active selected node already has one, the button removes it.

See Smart Corners.

Simplify

Removes extra nodes while holding the path close to its original shape. The cleanup scales with the artwork size, so it suits small icons as well as large drawings.

Use Optimizer when you want to pick the span with the mouse.

Nodes at Extremes

Adds or moves nodes at the left, right, top, and bottom extremes.

Autotrace runs this command on every new trace.

Second Command Row

Flip Horizontal and Flip Vertical

Flips the selected path points around their own center. Without a point selection, Vextra flips the contour.

These commands move nodes; they do not use Illustrator's object transform.

Align Horizontal and Align Vertical

Moves the selected points onto one horizontal or vertical center line.

Use them for baselines, stems, and matching construction points.

Remove Overlap

Combines overlapping closed contours into clean outlines and leaves open contours untouched.

Without a node selection, Vextra processes every closed contour in the active path.
With a selection, Vextra processes only the closed contours that hold at least one selected node.
Bézier handles do not count. Selecting only a handle leaves its contour out.

This lets you remove overlaps from one part of a compound path and leave the other contours alone. The result arrives with no node selection.

Autotrace

This button appears at the far right while an image is active. It turns the image into editable paths and switches to Vextra Editor.

See Autotrace Images.

Expand Selection or Contour

The first panel-menu command follows the current selection:

Expand Selection — turn the selected live Vextra features into normal nodes.
Expand Contour — turn the full processed contour into normal nodes.

Read Processed Output before expanding important work.

For the mouse versions of these edits, see Segments & Structure.