Welcome to the secret weapon of the Illustrator power user: .
For the uninitiated, this feels like victory. A neat line appears below your word. But zoom in. Look closer. illustrator underline
To understand the underline in Illustrator is to understand the eternal tension between automation and artistry. Let’s address the elephant in the studio. When you type text in Illustrator using the Type Tool (T) , you can click the "Underline" button in the Character panel (or hit Cmd+Shift+U on Mac / Ctrl+Shift+U on PC). Welcome to the secret weapon of the Illustrator power user:
The default Illustrator underline is a brute. It is a single, thin stroke anchored to the font’s baseline. It doesn't care about descenders (the tails on 'g', 'j', 'p', 'q', or 'y'). It slices right through them like a laser through fog. For a legal document, this is fine. For a luxury logotype or an editorial headline? It’s typographic vandalism. But zoom in