#Pencil

The Pencil (N) turns a freehand stroke into a clean, editable path with real points — unlike the Brush, which paints a shape.

#Draw

Drag to draw. The Smoothing slider decides how much your stroke is tidied: low keeps every wobble, high gives long smooth curves with only a few nodes.

#Width profile

In Properties → Appearance, under the stroke width, the Profile dropdown makes a line swell and taper instead of keeping one weight — Uniform, or Width Profile 1 to 6. Flip runs the profile from the other end. With the Pencil on, the profile you pick also goes on the lines you draw next. It works on Pen and Line paths too; brush strokes keep their pen pressure.

#Reshape a path by drawing over it

Select a path, then start a Pencil stroke on that path and draw the new shape. The section between where you started and where you ended is replaced, and joined seamlessly.

#Pencil or Brush?