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gourlie.goods
Participating Frequently
August 13, 2024
Answered

Save Rotation Center Point

  • August 13, 2024
  • 3 replies
  • 892 views

Is there a way to permanantly save the center of an object in Illustrator?

 

Right now I can select an object, click the rotation tool, Alt-Click to move the center point to make the dialogue box appear, press OK, and the object rotates around the point I've set as expected (this also works without Alt-Click but a lot of troubleshoot threads point to its significance). However when I deselect the object and do other stuff in my document then I click back to the object I set a custom center for and use the rotate tool the object center resets back to default center.

 

If this isn't a current feature it would be super handy to have!

Correct answer Jacob Bugge

gourlie.goods,

 

Maybe far too far out, but until the feature request is implemented or till the end of time, whichever occurs first, you can Click the desired centre point for the Rotate/Scale/Whatever Tool with the Ellipse Tool and set the Height and Width to 0, then Group with the path/group/clipping set/whichever (kind of) object

 

After that you can always see the centre point when selecting the object and snap to it with the help of Smart Guides (saying either anchor or center, working accurately in either case), then do the desired deed, at any time, also after reopening/restarting document/Ai/computer.

 

 

Edit: I wonder whether it may be relevant to mention in connexion with the request, @Egor Chistyakov

 

 

Edit edit: Or what Kurt said while I was delayed in posting.

 

3 replies

Jacob Bugge
Community Expert
Jacob BuggeCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
Community Expert
August 13, 2024

gourlie.goods,

 

Maybe far too far out, but until the feature request is implemented or till the end of time, whichever occurs first, you can Click the desired centre point for the Rotate/Scale/Whatever Tool with the Ellipse Tool and set the Height and Width to 0, then Group with the path/group/clipping set/whichever (kind of) object

 

After that you can always see the centre point when selecting the object and snap to it with the help of Smart Guides (saying either anchor or center, working accurately in either case), then do the desired deed, at any time, also after reopening/restarting document/Ai/computer.

 

 

Edit: I wonder whether it may be relevant to mention in connexion with the request, @Egor Chistyakov

 

 

Edit edit: Or what Kurt said while I was delayed in posting.

 

Kurt Gold
Community Expert
Community Expert
August 13, 2024

In the meantime you may convert the object into a symbol.

 

Symbols do support persistent custom rotation centres (you have to set it while editing the symbol definition on the scratch area).

gourlie.goods
Participating Frequently
August 13, 2024

Awesome! Just tested this and it will work in the meantime, thanks.

Monika Gause
Community Expert
Community Expert
August 13, 2024

That is currently not supported. But there is already a feature request that you might want to support: https://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/333657-illustrator-desktop-feature-requests/suggestions/31518439-an-ability-to-permanently-move-the-transformation 

gourlie.goods
Participating Frequently
August 13, 2024

Yikes, that request was from 2017! I'll definitely support that request but I guess this isn't going to happen anytime soon. 🙃 Thanks for finding that!