Basic Question: How do you accurately control placement of control points?

[gregand70291927]

I've been using illustrator as a hobby now for over a year and always wanted an answer to this question... and I've finally got a use case where I MUST know the answer. 🙂

Challenge: I want to precisely place multiple control points and their angle to create a perfectly symetrical shape like the lid in the image below that has curved corners and sides.

Details: I'm looking to emulate the shape of the lid in the image below (minus the handle), I'd like to control D and Angle shown in the Info panel precisely so that I can get all sides and corners identical, but it seems like there is only a manual way to manipulate them with mouse which isn't as accurate as I want.

Is there a way to punch in the numerical values for D and Angle with your keyboard?

[Monika Gause · Accepted solution]

For drawing symmetrically, you first draw one half and then copy and mirror it.

If you want to position handles numerically, you will need plugins, e.g. the plugin VectorScribe. It can also copy and paste handles.

[gregand70291927]

A paid plugin is needed for this? Wow! I'm stunned.

Thanks for the answer, I really appreciate it.

[gregand70291927]

Thank you, worked perfect. Luckily they have a 7 day free trial, can't justify subscribing to this package of plugins for $140 a year unfortunately.