If you work with curves in Illustrator, then you definitely need BetterHandles.

BetterHandles is an Adobe Illustrator tool plug-in for working with the direction handles of Bezier curves.

The BetterHandles tool is used to click on or drag direction handles, anchor points and path segments; it can also be dragged on a blank area of the document as a marquee to select handles or points. When the tool is selected and held over a blank area of the document, the cursor looks like an inverted "V," similar to the Convert Anchor Point tool, but thicker, so as to distinguish it.

The cursor automatically changes to give you feedback, depending on several factors: whether you are dragging or not, what lies underneath and what modifier keys are being held down.

Here are some key features of "BetterHandles":

· Select multiple handles, and collectively move, extend, rotate, or retract them
· Extend or retract handles without changing their angles
· Edit points numerically: anchor, in handle, out handle
· Convert multiple points from corner to smooth or vice versa
· Automatically extend new handles on multiple points
· Intuitively reshape path segments, optionally constraining handle directions
· Use slow-drag to divide the cursor movement for extremely precise moves
· Equalize a point's handles
· See all the handles on a path while editing it
· Split a path at one or more points
· Delete one or more points and close the path around them
· Remove all redundant points on multiple paths
· See when the cursor is over a handle, point, or path - without having to use Smart Guides.

Requirements:

· Adobe Illustrator 10, CS, CS2 or CS3

What's New in This Release: [ read full changelog ]

· Now fully compatible with Illustrator CS5 on both platforms
· New feature: Smart Remove points will attempt to keep the shape of the curve as close as possible to the original after removing one or more points from the path
· New feature: You can now add automatically add points to the currently selected path(s) at their horizontal and vertical tangencies
· New feature: Connector points (points between straight segments and curved segments) can be recognized and their handles automatically kept in alignment
· New feature: You can now automatically close all selected open paths, optionally honoring any existing endpoint handles
· Improvement: With Smart Guides off, the snap radius for anchor points and handles now matches the value set in Illustrator Preferences > Selection & Anchor Display > Selection > Tolerance
· Improvement: After entering a new value in one of the single point fields on the palette, the tab key will automatically highlight the next field
· Improvement: When hovering over a pat...