How to cut a circle in half in Illustrator tutorial

Learn how to cut a circle path in half in Illustrator

How do you cut a circle in half in Illustrator CC CS6 CS5 etc tutorial. There are many ways to cut a circle into halves in Illustrator. You can cut the circle into two halves by using divide and pathfinder command and removing the excess. You can also use the divide objects below command to cut a circle into half by using a single line. You can also use anchor point tool / pen tool to remove half of a circle in Illustrator. You can use the knife tool to cut a circle into two halves by using alt / option key. You can also use eraser tool and shift key to cut through a circle. The semi-circles can be moved apart and re-colored and scaled and rotated etc. This tutorial shows a number of methods to cut a circle in half in Illustrator

1. Select the ellipse tool in Illustrator toolbar

2. Draw circle by holding shift key down

3. View menu and smart guides ON

4. Draw a rectangle using the rectangle tool bigger than the circle

5. Shift the rectangle to cut the middle of circle (intersect will appear in the smart guide)

6. Pathfinder panel and divide

7. Object menu and ungroup

8. Delete remaining rectangle

As with many techniques in Illustrator, there are many ways to cut a circle in half. The above method uses the divide approach with a rectangle

Divide objects below / cut circle in half in Illustrator

1. Split into grid

2. Ellipse tool

3. Create a circle holding the shift down

4. Create a line using line segment tool top - down and bigger than the circle

5. Set line weight to 0 / stroke to no color

6. Select both paths using selection tool

7. Horizontal align center

8. Vertical align center

9. Keep line selected (de-select the circle)

10. Object menu

11. Path

12. Divide objects below

 

 

Circle has now been cut in half in Illustrator and can be moved apart by using the selection tool

Anchor tools and cut circle to semi circle

You can also use the anchor point tool and pen tool to cut a circle in half (well, actually, just turn the path into a semi circle and that can then be duplicate and combined again as a circle)

 

1. Select circle

2. Click the pen tool

3. Go to the far left point and click with pen tool

4. Go to the anchor point tool

5. Click the top far left handle

6. Click the bottom left handle (of the circle)

Knife tool to cut a circle in half in Illustrator

1. Go to the eraser tool

2. Select the knife tool (beneath eraser tool)

3. Hover over top anchor point

4. hold alt / option

5. Draw through the top anchor

6. Through to the center

7. To the bottom anchor point

 

The alt / option key makes the knife a straight line knife

Eraser tool / circle into halves

You can also cut the circle into two halves in Illustrator by using the scissor tool in the toolbar. A little less accurate (zoom in to see the top of the circle)

 

1. Select circle

2. Eraser tool in toolbar

3. Double click erase tool

4. Set size to 0

5. Go to the top anchor point

6. Hold shift

7. Click top anchor and draw scissor downwards

8. Release after bottom anchor point

 

You can now select either side of the circle. The semi circle can be re-colored

 

Sources and references

1. Cut and divide in Illustrator on Adobe.com

2. Shapes such as circles on wikipedia

3. Circles on Adobe.com

Other Resources

1. Circle fonts for Photoshop, psp etc

Other tutorials

1. Eraser tool in Illustrator