Another confusing one for Illustrator Newbies.

The video below should start at the Pathfinder section – if not, skip to 8:33

Create 2 shapes to have a go with the align options…

Go to “Window” in the horizontal menu bar at the top

Then in the drop down menu choose Pathfinder

Overlap your 2 shapes then choose “Unite” on the left of the ‘Shape Modes’

This will create one big shape out of your 2 smaller shapes.

Undo that by pressing CTRL Z and this time choose
The second Shape Mode option – minus front. This cuts out the top shape from the bottom one.

The 3rd option – Intersect – Removes everything except where the 2 shapes intersect.

To do the opposite to Intersect – the exclude option removes any shapes or part of shapes that overlap.