How to Make a Wavy Line in Adobe Illustrator

You might be tempted to pull out the pen tool to make a wavy line in Adobe Illustrator, and while that is a perfectly correct way to do this, you can speed it up a little.

First, we’re going to draw a straight line. You can do this with either the line tool (shortcut: \) or the pen tool (shortcut: P). I’m going to use the pen tool, and hold shift to keep it straight.

Once you have made your line we’re going to go back to the move tool (shortcut: V), and in the Properties panel or the Appearance panel we’re going to go to the Effects (fx) options, find “Distort and Tranform” and then choose “Zig Zag”.

We’re going to change our settings to “smooth”, and then you can increase the size of the wavy line and how many waves there are. (Make sure you have “Preview” ticked on so you can see what you’re going.)

Once you have the settings you like chosen, click “OK”, and then we’re going to expand it. Right now, the effect is visible, but we want to expand it so we can edit the wavy paths if we want to.

So, with the wavy line selected, go “Object”, and then “Expand Appearance” to turn the effect into a path.

And once that has been done, this method is indistinguishable from using the pen tool or making a wavy line using another method.