Well, grouping just for the purpose of aligning may interfere with grouping and layering for other purposes. Also often I need to align just parts of an object (points or edges) along with separated objects preserving the current spacing between the selected objects and segments. As to how it can be done, well that's what programing is for, the whole point of it is to create solutions for this kind of problems. As for the user interaction, there may be more elegant solutions but my first thought is to increase the functionality of the selection sets by moving them from the menu in a selection sets panel where multiple selection sets can be selected. This will also add selection functionally to make selection by adding together multiple selection sets - currently it is one at a time. Even if they only put them in a panel, that would make them more useful - I almost never use them and forget about them because I hate digging in menus just to create a selection. ... View more

Yeah, grouping as already suggested is the only way  considered as one unit for the alignment tools. I wish there was a feature that would consider a selection as one unit for alignment purposes so I can keep my layers and groups hierarchy. ... View more

Oh, I thought it is not for printing. Then, guessing the cdarklock's workflow, I think may be one time effort of creating one artboard with a rectangle of the desired color and  when needed duplicating it instead of creating new, saves the effort of adding a rectangle all the time. ... View more

Another workaround, using File > Document Setup, you can make the two colors of the transparency grid the same and always work with Show Transparency Grid on which is accessible from the View menu (Shift + Ctrl + D) ... View more

Kurt Gold wrote: Smart guides should provide that functionality, but they still don't. That will also require smart objects that have transformation history like rotational angle, scale, etc. Otherwise how would smart guides know the angle of the line under a point? The only way without smart objects is with additional input form the user to define a line with another point to tell the smart guides what the angle is. Currently all snapping and alignment provided from the smart guides is calculated on the fly using the coordinates of the mouse and bound box of the objects in relation to the grid. ... View more

wells24 wrote: Thanks very much Jacob.  In theory that works a treat, but in reality I'm drawing hundreds if not thousands of these lines/angles on each plan.  (Tracing building outlines of a town). I guess what I was really after is a way to amend the 'Shift' keyboard shortcut or a plugin, something along those lines... I don't think it is that much more effort that what could be with using additional software solutions. You still have to give some input like selecting the line you want to align to. So, let's review the effort again. You set your Rotate tool to 90 degrees by rotating something which is one time effort. Then with the smart guides on using the Line Segment tool you draw a path with the desired length over the path you want to align it to using it like a guide. Then select the Rotate tool by pressing R on your keyboard followed by pressing Enter twice and your path is rotated 90 degrees to the other path. ... View more

When two or more objects are selected, to select only one or some of them, with the Selection tool, in addition to first clicking on an empty spot to deselect as Jacob suggested, you can also click and drag from the empty spot  to draw a selection box. Only objects that are partially or entirely overlapped by the selection box will be selected. In case there is not an empty spot, for example when zoomed in or viewing a portion of the artwork made with fills taking the whole window, what I usually do is using the shortcut Shift + Ctrl + A which deselects any selection. Using the main menu you can find it in Select > Deselect. Once deselected you can just click on the an object to select it and clicking on other unselected objects holding Shift will add them to the selection. ... View more

oneofthefunmoms wrote: ... How do I plain ole' delete? I did the line tool & positioned it oh so carefully. Followed. 2) Object>Path>Divide Objects below Then the f lit up like a blue Christmas tree. Delete the unwanted part....Yikes...Now what?!  How?  Delete? Pressing the Delete key on your keyboard deletes what is selected. If your 6 years old have used the computer it will be one of the first things  discovered. In his instructions Jacob assumed that you know this. So, assuming you don't, his instructions would be like this: 1) Drag across the f tail where you want to cut it with the Line Tool, 2) Object>Path>Divide Objects below, 3) Select only the unwanted part 4) Delete the unwanted part. ... View more

Try this, on the step shown on your last screenshot in post  #5, pick the Eraser tool, the shortcut for it is Shift + E, then hold Alt key on you keyboard (Option if you are on a mac) and draw a rectangle where you want the part of the f removed. It will erase only from the selected path so don't worry if you draw the erasing rectangle over unselected letters, it won't erase those. edit: You can also erase it with more than one rectangle by repeating the step, for example draw the erasing rectangle by starting with a line where you want it cut then drag down until the tail below the starting line is covered. Then if a part of the tail remains above the line erase it with another rectangle. ... View more

off topic question: is Christianfaith one word? In case it is intended to look like two words, it doesn't look like two words to me, especially after removing the leg of the f. ... View more

Emulate Illustrator 6 means turn off color management so the behavior in this case with graying out the options makes sense. Don't color manage this document means remove or don't attach color profile to it. My guess is it may not work for everyone because this is not a solution designed  for this but a lucky coincidence, at least in my and Mike's version (I'm using CS5 with Windows 7). The real problem to be solved from Adobe is that Photoshop and Illustrator don't agree that it is the same color space in both programs and should not make any color values conversions. ... View more

I can't reproduce this. This is a very strange and obviously malfunctioning behavior. Try restarting the programs, and if this doesn't help, reset the Illustrator preferences. ... View more

Yes, this does work for me too Mike, thanks. At, least with the tests I've made so far. This workaround was definitely not designed for this at all but luckily it works at least in my version. If working properly the colors values should not change at all when using the same color spaces in both programs. When using this workaround, to see the document properly, we should make sure that the working space in the color settings is set to the color space that we cannot use in the document. Otherwise the document may be displayed differently. ... View more

I made my tests with the North American General Purpose 2 settings and this is what I use most of the time but sometimes with different modifications depending on the job. I think color values shifting when applying colors within Photoshop is a bug because I've seen  the same color values sometimes  change and sometimes they stay while no color settings have been changed. Apparently there is another variable factor affecting it but I can't figure it out. They designed the color management to match as close as possible appearance and not values. So whenever matching values is needed we have to turn the color management off. The problem is that it is always on and turning it off is a convoluted process using workarounds which sometimes may not work because of glitches occurring between various system and  programs processes in charge of all this. ... View more

emulating Illustrator 6 gets the correct values but turns the color management of the display off. The values in the file will be the same as the values sent to the monitor. I'm using a wide gamut monitor and the colors are displayed completely differently than intended. One solution is to turn it off only for copying and pasting and then back in order to see what I'm doing. ... View more

I checked that with 234, 76, 52 and got 234, 75, 52 when using the same color space in both programs. Yours is more different with 234 becoming 233. If I save or export a file from Illustrator and open, place, or drag it in Photoshop the numbers stay the same. Also opening the smart object in Illustrator from Photoshop shows the original unmodified numbers. The thing that must be noted is that both programs render (send to the monitor) the same values from 234, 76, 52 in Illustrator and 234, 75, 52 in Photoshop so, the monitor shows identical colors when using these two different values. I even created the two different colors 234, 76, 52 and 234, 75, 52 next to each other in  Illustrator  and the monitor renders them the same. To make this test yourself create two colors in illustrator with your different values 234, 76, 52 and 233, 75, 52 next to each other then take a screen capture and paste it in Illustrator or Photoshop then measure the colors with the eyedropper to see if they are the same. I think the explanation to all this is rounding errors depending on the monitor profile used. 8 bit monitors with wider gamut color space have to make bigger jumps from one band (shade) to another to map one color space to another. 10 bit capable monitors and video card combination which are not available a lot should address this issue better. ... View more

Steve Fairbairn wrote: Is there any possible way to  round some corners and not others as an effect? I don’t believe so. I don't believe this either. It must be a fundamental change in the Illustrator core to include intelligent object primitives. ... View more

Well, this is basically what Steve suggested and I think this is what most users know and do for the lack of better options which this thread was about. Using the same approach for me the fastest way is to select the anchor points I want rounded, cut them, paste in front, then apply the round corner effect, expand appearance, select all and Join or Pathfinder's Unite. I prefer Join because it comes with a  shortcut (Ctrl + J) which works like that in the recent versions. The problem with all variations of this approach we are using is that the effect is expanded and is no longer live which looses flexibility to change it easily later in the development of the artwork. It also expands the appearance attributes like strokes and fills into multiple objects which requires additional work to put those back. For these reasons I don't use this approach except for the final files sent to the customer. During the development of the artwork, for the lack of  better, I use the round corners effect and cope with its limitations in various workarounds. I think for the most part the point of this thread was about improving this in Illustrator. And the best solution I can imagine is the screen shot shown in post #8. ... View more

downcasteyes wrote: ... And whala! You've got your one rounded corner object. 😃 Well, I followed your instructions but I didn't get one object but four, and they don't even look like one object. On the left side are two objects I started with and on the right side it shows what happens when each side is cut in the middle with the scissors. ... View more

It is what Doug said. Make sure in both documents the artboards have the same x and y coordinates even though the size can be different. Copy the pattern from one document and Paste in Front in the other. Then you can transform it it in which case the preferences explained by Jet and Mike take control of how it is transformed. ... View more

Risherp, I searched for your monitor model and saw that it is 23 inches. I  used this link to find  out the physical size you are viewing your screen image. http://members.ping.de/~sven/dpi.html in comparison, on my monitor Illustrator is worse. This is my screen. To see the physical size I'm viewing it on my monitor, place this image in Illustrator and set its size to  23.53 inches wide by 13.24 inches high. Then display the rules and zoom until one inch  on the ruler in Illustrator equals one inch on a real life ruler.  Then you will see how small and cr*** the Illustrator UI is. It is pain in the a** I have no doubt that the Illustrator UI design team use monitors from the last century with a fixed resolution of 72 ppi. ... View more

Jacob Bugge wrote: ... A strange solution. What made you try that? Based on the rest of Chloe's input, I guess after trying everything, this was the only or first thing possible to do. Sorry Jacob, I couldn't resist  ... View more

PwrSrg wrote: ... Your solution has no effect on our problem. I'm wondering if you actually tried my solution and if yes, what steps did you make? I don't have this problem. Using CS5 on Windows 7. May be I'm wrong but I have a feeling that it is a system and not Illustrator problem that needs to be fixed. I think the size of the application windows are managed by the system. ... View more

Does this happen when Illustrator is already open and maximized and you double click .ai file in a folder or only when Illustrator is not running and you double click an .ai file? ... View more

Try the solution in post #11 here forums.adobe.com/message/5640644#5640644 ... View more

Tutorials are good for beginners, but playing around on your own is also good and may help you advance faster. This will make you encounter more problems like the one you had and looking for the reasons and finding them will teach you to solve problems. Advanced users are working by solving problems all the time - they are not following tutorials. You will not find tutorials for everything you may need to create. ... View more

They all create paths that when viewed in outline view look the same. The pen and pencil tools are two different ways to create the same thing. With the pen you manually put the points and control the shape of the curves with handles. With the pencil you draw like using a real life pencil and based on your movements and speed Illustrator adds the points automatically and creates the shape of the curves according to parameters that you can set in the options of the tool. You can start creating a path with one tool and continue drawing or editing the path with the other tool. Also the Smooth and Path Eraser tools under the Pencil group in the tool box are basically the pencil tool in special mode. The brush tool functions and is basically the same like the pencil but the only difference that makes it unique is that it can react to pressure sensitivity input which creates variable width of the stroke and is built into the path. This pressure sensitivity appearance cannot be edited or reused on other paths. You can apply a brush appearance to any path being drawn with any tool  even during its creation by clicking a brush in the brushes panels. This doesn’t change the current tool but applies the brush appearance to the path. Another way to create variable width stroke is using the Width tool which can be used on paths without pressure sensitive input. The appearance created with the Width tool can be edited and reused on other paths using the Profile menu in the Stroke panel. You can remove the variable width and pressure sensitive brush appearance from paths as you have already found out by playing around. Just experiment, play around and  you will discover what tool is most suitable for certain tasks. I use all of them depending on the job. But naturally the pen and brush tools are best used when using digital pen. I don’t think I would ever use these tools if I have to use the mouse. I is like in real life trying to draw by pushing and dragging a brick. ... View more

I'm not sure if this is the problem but try this: select all and from the flyout menu of the Appearance panel, choose Reduce to Basic Appearance. In my verion CS5 Illustrator does this automatically after showing a warning message for appearances like variable width strokes that your drawing has and are incompatible with Live Paint . To keep the outlines with variable width strokes you can duplicate the layer on top, lock it, remove the stroke from all on the layer below and apply the Live Paint to it. ... View more

JETalmage wrote: ...For example, show me a preview of a continuous-tone grayscale image with a 100% spot white Swatch applied to it as a fill, overprinting a darker object (i.e.; the color of the substrate)... I see what you mean Jet, I don't have much experience with screen printing except some of my logo designs with flat colors printed by the clients on t-shirts and other things so, your input is greatly appreciated. However I would like to say that although the multi channel preview in Photoshop obviously and based on your input, simulates much better the screen print, I'm not sure if it was designed for that purpose. Multi channel doesn't have a color space and the display of the colors on the monitor assumes the RGB working color space (profile) selected in the Color Settings. If you check the different RGB working spaces available in the menu with the preview checked, you will see how different the display becomes which is more obvious if you are using an image like a photo with a lot of tones. Also I don't see noticeable difference when the image is on one channel but when I add another channel that simulates the substrates changing the RGB working spaces makes a big difference. I have a wide gamut monitor which can display the Pantone colors pretty closely to the printed Pantone book when I'm using a wider color space. But I don't know what color space is supposed to be used for simulating screen prints. May be for most practical purposes for rough previews of screen prints  such precision doesn't matter anyway. ... View more