Improving Workflow

[wheezy]

Hi everyone! I often have to create lot maps for new communities, as pictured below. Currently, my workflow goes like this:

1. Draw all shapes
2. Type one number, copy it manually to each lot (sped up a bit by "transform again"),
3. Go back and retype each label to the correct number
4. Center align each number to it's lot one by one
5. Place landscaping symbols, usually manually.

I'm hoping someone here will have a suggestion to optimize this process a bit. I haven't found a way to auto serialize numbers in Illustrator or distribute them to shapes in a more automated way.

Thanks in advance!

[Monika Gause]

If they are in the correct stacking order, you could select all the text areas, combine them into a threaded text and then import the numbers as a text file separated by returns.

[wheezy]

Hey Monika, thanks for the suggestion! Interesting idea, but I'm not sure how big of a time saver that would be. I would still need to type all of the numbers into a text file and perform all of the other actions to distribute and align manually.

It's worth a test run though, thanks again!

[Monika Gause · Accepted solution]

Excel can generate those numbers for you.

And of course, aligning etc will still be an issue.

You can try the plugin

ColliderScribe

It makes aligning easier, but there's still manual work

[wheezy]

Very cool plugin, thanks for sharing.

[Myra Ferguson]

You might start by creating one rectangle with landscaping symbols on 2 corners, and one text box centered inside it. Use Effect > Distort & Transform > Transform... to make however many copies you need. Just do one section at a time, so for 1-13 place the landscaping on the upper and lower left corners then make the horizontal setting in the Transform Effect dialog the size of your rectangle not including the landscaping if you don't want any space between. You can click Preview to check it. When it looks like how you want, click OK. At this point, it's just an effect. You'll need to go to Object > Expand Appearance to turn the individual copies into what you can adjust.

Now you can thread the text boxes and import generated numbers from Excel. Here's more info on that Re: Incremental numbering for multiple objects

You can make adjustments to the shapes, like the rounded corners for 12 and 13, and remove the extra landscaping, and insert the space for the road.

Use the same process for the vertical rows.

For the diagonal row, make a whichever kind of row works best. Rotate it all and note of what angle you used. Deselect then select the text. Ungroup it. Now use Object > Transform Each to rotate them back using their individual pivot points by however much you rotated the whole row. (If you rotated it 45 degrees, use Transform each to rotate them to -45 degrees). And again, thread your text and adjust shapes as needed.

Hope that helps