That’s it! You have just created your own custom arrowhead in Adobe Illustrator that will be there as a default. Once you update Illustrator to a newer version you might need to do this process again or replace the new “Arrowheads.ai” file with the one you have just created.
How to Create Custom Arrowheads in Illustrator
The default arrowheads in Adobe Illustrator are often enough for most designers to work with but in case you want to use a customized version and want avoid creating each arrow over and over again, follow these steps:
1
First, go to Finder > Adobe Illustrator > Support Files > Resources.
2
Select “Arrowheads.ai” and create a duplicate of this to have a backup.
3
Open the “Arrowheads.ai” file in Illustrator.
4
Then, open up the Symbols panel (Window > Symbols)
5
In the Symbols panel, select an arrowhead, go to the hamburger icon (☰) and select “Duplicate Symbol”.
6
Double-click the new arrowhead.
7
Customize/replace the arrowhead to your needs. Only change the arrowhead, not the outer box or the line itself.
8
Expand any strokes from the arrowhead by going to Object > Expand.
9
Save and close the Arrowheads.ai document in a different folder than the original file.
10
Then, place the file back to the Resources folder and select “Replace”.
11
Restart Adobe Illustrator.
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