Use More Transform Tools


The Rotate tool tearoff includes the Reflect tool. The Scale tool tearoff reveals the Shear and Reshape tools. All three of these tools provide more options for warping, stretching, and basically mangling any selected object(s). These tools work much as the Rotate tool does, but they produce different effects.

In the dialog boxes for the Reflect and Shear tools, the Preview check box shows your changes before you click OK or press ENTER . The Objects and Patterns check boxes, when available, determine whether objects and/or pattern fills are transformed.

The Reflect, Shear, and Reshape tools are demonstrated in Figure 7-12.

click to expand
Figure 7-12: The Reflect and Shear tools work on the objects in a cohesive way, while the Reshape tool works on individual elements of an object.

The Reflect tool (in the Rotate tool tearoff) allows you to mirror selected objects precisely by using a dialog box. You can flip an object upside down by choosing the Horizontal button. Choosing Vertical mirrors an object without changing the top/bottom relationship. Or you can rotate both horizontally and vertically by choosing the Value button and entering an angle in the Angle box.

The Shear tool (in the Scale tool tearoff) skews selected objects. The shearing (skewing) takes place around the center point of the object unless you first click to set an anchor point. In that case, the anchor point is fixed while the rest of the object shears. You can also define shearing for a selected object by double-clicking the Shear tool to open a dialog box similar to the Rotate dialog box.

The Reshape tool (also in the Scale tool tearoff) interactively works on selected objects to stretch and distort them. Click first to set a fixed anchor point, and then drag on another point to distort the object. The Reshape tool is not associated with a dialog box.




How to Do Everything with Illustrator CS
How to Do Everything with Adobe Illustrator CS
ISBN: 0072230924
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2002
Pages: 175
Authors: David Karlins

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