Dimensions change when rotating objects

Hi Lauren,

when in the Properties panel you perhaps see the three dots at the bottom of section Transform.

Click them and you'll get some more information about your selected object. Also the true width and height for the unrotated object. Instead if you are using the Transform panel from the Window main menu you see that values immediately.

Regards,
Uwe Laubender
( Adobe Community Professional )

Lauren,

A safer (albeit maybe no more cunning) way is to (Smart Guides being your friends):

1) Create a circle larger than the largest icon with an impossible/otherwise unused Stroke colour, and snap the sentre of (a copy of) it to the top Anchor Point of each circle, then rotate the relevant number copies of it round the circle (by 360/total number, in degrees);

2) Place (a copy of) each desired icon into the relevant copy circle, you can use Align horizontally and vertically and/or visually to look right, as desired, then rotate each set of copy circle and icon (by number*360/total number in degrees);

3) Select all the sets of copy circle and icon and rotate as desired, if desired, to avoid all of them have an icon at the top Anchor Point;

4) Delete the copy circles or set their Stroke to None or their colour to None or their Opacity to 0.

Lauren,

In addition to what Kurt said, as I (mis)understand it, you may be able to apply all the different icons round each circle in one go, without placing/rotating each icon one by one, with the same distance between centres or spacing as desired.

Unless your Blend decides to move in mysterious ways, you can:

1) Select all the icons for the circle and place them beside one another, then make a copy of the first one and place it after the last one, then make sure their stacking order (in the expanded Layer in the Layers panel) corresponds to their positions, then Align them (Vertical Align Center in Align Objects), then use Horizontal Distribute Center or use Horizontal Distribute Space;

2) Object>Blend>Options, set Spacing to Specified Steps = 1, and set Orientation to Align to Path;

3) Select all the icons from 1) and Object>Blend>Make, and shudder at the way it looks (optional);

4) Select the circle and cut it with the Scissors Tool where you wish to have the centre of the first icon;

5)ShiftClick the Blend and Object>Blend>Replace Spine;

6) Object>Blend>Expand and delete the malformed intermediate shapes along with the copy of the first icon (it is on top).

Hopefully you are through.

If the Blend has decided to move in mysterious ways, it may be possible to correct it by simple means such as rotating icons by 180 degrees (you can select all the ailing ones and use Transform Each).

There are more cunning ways, including the use of symbols, and I am sure Kurt can come up with a few.

Which version of Illustrator are you using?

You are talking about pretty small objects, but you should also describe what kind of geometry you are using (preferably, you may share a sample Illustrator file) and what kind of rotations you are applying.