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Create New Layers in Adobe Illustrator CS6

Edited by Freya, VisiHow, Eng

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Steps

Video: Create New Layers in Adobe Illustrator CS6

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You're watching VisiHow. In this tutorial, we are going to show you how to create a new layer in Adobe Illustrator CS6 in Windows 7.

Create a New Layer on Adobe Illustrator CS6.mp4-canvas91 757728.jpg

Steps

1
To begin, you should open Illustrator
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You can do it by clicking it on the desktop

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2
Alternatively, click the Windows icon once in the bottom-left corner of the screen
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A list of your recently used programs will be revealed. You may find the Illustrator icon in the list. The icon is brown and orange and has the letters "Ai".

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3
If you still can't find it, use the search bar along the bottom and start typing "Adobe Illustrator"
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Click "Adobe Illustrator CS6". Illustrator will immediately start loading and take us directly to our workspace.
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4
Before you open your document, click the two overlapping squares on the right-hand panel
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This is the "Layers" panel.

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5
Create a new layer by clicking "File" in the top left-hand corner
.
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6
Click "New..."
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Alternatively, press "Ctrl" and "N" on the keyboard. You can also open an existing document from the drop-down menu. For more details on opening a new document in Adobe Illustrator, please view our other tutorials.

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7
Click "OK"
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You can see in our layers panel that our document has "Layer 1". It is the background layer.
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8
To add a new layer, click the "Create New Layer" icon
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The icon is a square with a folded corner. The icon is at the bottom of the "Layers" panel. This creates a new layer, "Layer 2", which you can see above the existing "Layer 1". It is differentiated from "Layer 1" by the red line. "Layer 2" is currently highlighted, which means that we are working with this layer. Even though we are working with "Layer 2", we can still see our background layer.

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9
Let's quickly create a shape and put it onto "Layer 2"
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The box next to "Layer 2" is filled in red, as the box itself sums up the layer.
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10
You can also hide layers by clicking the eye icon to the left of the layer that you want to hide
.
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This concludes our tutorial showing you how to create a new layer on Adobe Illustrator CS6 in Windows 7. If you have any questions or queries regarding this tutorial, just add them to the comment section below. Thank you for choosing VisiHow!