Welcome to Vexy Vextra for Illustrator

Edit Illustrator paths with direct tools for nodes, handles, curves, corners, and cleanup.

Vexy Vextra is a native plug-in for Adobe Illustrator on macOS and Windows. This manual calls it Vextra.

Vextra adds six path-editing tools and a small dockable panel. It works on ordinary paths and compound paths, and it leaves the artwork's fill, stroke, opacity, position, and other Illustrator settings untouched.

What You Can Do

  • Select and move nodes, handles, segments, or full contours.
  • Drag a point on a curve to reshape it directly.
  • Insert nodes without changing the curve.
  • Turn lines into curves and slide nodes along a path.
  • Copy and paste contour parts inside Vextra, or exchange them as SVG.
  • Edit sharp, smooth, tangent, and G2 nodes.
  • Add live Smart Corners and adjust their radius.
  • Check and balance curve tension with Tunni lines.
  • Draw and correct paths with the Pencil.
  • Clean paths with the Eraser, Optimizer, Knife, and Scissors.
  • Remove overlaps from a whole path or from selected contours only.
  • Show guides, curvature, distances, angles, and coordinates.
  • Trace images and edit the result right away.

How Vextra Works

Vextra edits one path or compound path at a time. This is the active artwork.

Several features keep the path you edit simple while showing a more finished shape on the canvas. A Smart Corner, for example, keeps its sharp node but draws a rounded corner. The path you edit is the source contour; the shape Illustrator paints is the processed result.

That split is what makes advanced shapes easy to change. Keep them live while you work, then expand them into ordinary Illustrator nodes when the shape is finished.

Vextra also draws its own nodes and handles, so it can show node types, selected segments, Smart Corner controls, Tunni lines, and other detail without mixing them into Illustrator's anchor display.

Start Here

  1. Read Installation.
  2. Follow Getting Started.
  3. Review Artwork & Activation and Panel & Tools.
  4. Learn Selection, Nodes & Handles, and Segments & Structure.
  5. Continue with G2 Continuity, Smart Corners, and Processed Output.

System Requirements

Vextra requires Adobe Illustrator 28.7 or later.

  • On macOS, it requires macOS 13 or later and runs natively on Apple Silicon and Intel Macs.
  • On Windows, it is a native 64-bit plug-in for Windows 10 and Windows 11.

Keys on Mac and Windows

Where key names differ, this manual writes the macOS key first:

  • Command / Ctrl
  • Option / Alt
  • Control / Ctrl

So Command-C / Ctrl-C copies a Vextra contour selection, and Option-drag / Alt-drag copies and moves selected path parts.

Create your first editing session in Getting Started.