One of the most notable things I learned in my design classes has been the usage of the action tool in Illustrator! I actually learned this my first semester in Design 1 when I was working on a isometric home design and had to repeatedly use rotated, sheared and flipped shapes. Using the action tool made working on this project a million times easier and saved a lot of time!
To create an action, first you have to open the Actions tab in ‘Window.’ Once you have that opened, select the plus sign that says ‘create a new action,’ then you can name it whatever you like. Then you press record and this will allow the program to follow every step that you do until you end the recording.
The recording doesn’t record any audio or your screen, it simply records every click that you do so it’s important that you do everything you want to be repeated perfectly. If you mess up, thats okay! You can simply restart or delete certain steps that weren’t necessary!
Once your recording is finished, you can select your object that you want your action to effect and simply select ‘play current selection’ and your action will apply!