What is up with triangles in Illustrator?

[OppelWoW]

What is up the basic triangle in Illustrator?  This has bothered me for years.

Its default center point is always off compared to other shapes.  It is never actually center.  Which throws then throws off the rotation.

It also doesn’t act the same as other shapes with the free transform tool.

If you use a tringle as the shape for in this tutorial the results are quite different compared to other shapes.

[OppelWoW]

Thanks.  That makes sense.

[Kurt Gold · Accepted solution]

Recent versions of Illustrator actually do show the geometrical centres of triangles and (some) other polygons as long as they are live (shape) polygons.

In case your triangles are not live shapes, you can try to convert them with the Object menu > Shape > Convert into Shape command.

[Doug A Roberts]

So they do! It's easy to forget to check what you remember every so often.

[OppelWoW]

Thank you.  I will check that out.

[Ton Frederiks]

Live shapes show indeed the correct center, but only the live shape properties in the transform panel use it.

Smart guides don't recognize it, Guides don't snap to it, rotate and scale tools don't use it and neither does the Transform effect.

When the rotate property of the live shape is used, the standard Transform Again forgets about it.

It is a nice feauture that disappears when you need it.

[Kurt Gold]

Ton,

Guides do snap to them if you enable the centre point button in the Attributes palette. Smart Guides will then at least partially snap as well.

There are some unfortunate limitations, though.

[Ton Frederiks]

I see, that makes it a little more useful (I edited my comment).