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Bill Hopcraft
Inspiring
August 31, 2017
Answered

Path Lengths When Using the Pen Tool?

  • August 31, 2017
  • 1 reply
  • 4569 views

When drawing a path with the Pen tool, can you define the lengths of the individual line segments?

    This topic has been closed for replies.
    Correct answer Bill Silbert

    You can define its length after it's been drawn using the control panel. See screen shot:

    You can determine the length of the line in the L: field (in this case I made the line 3 inches). Using the reference point icon on the left of the panel you can determine whether the line grows or shrinks from the left, right or center.

    You could also predetermine a line's length by drawing a single point, selecting it and with Step and Repeat (option-command-u on a mac alt-control-u on PC) send a copy of the point whatever distance you want and then after selecting the original point and the copy using the join command found through the object menu>Path>Join.

    1 reply

    Bill Silbert
    Bill SilbertCorrect answer
    Braniac
    August 31, 2017

    You can define its length after it's been drawn using the control panel. See screen shot:

    You can determine the length of the line in the L: field (in this case I made the line 3 inches). Using the reference point icon on the left of the panel you can determine whether the line grows or shrinks from the left, right or center.

    You could also predetermine a line's length by drawing a single point, selecting it and with Step and Repeat (option-command-u on a mac alt-control-u on PC) send a copy of the point whatever distance you want and then after selecting the original point and the copy using the join command found through the object menu>Path>Join.

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    Bill HopcraftAuthor
    Inspiring
    August 31, 2017

    Bill, you seem to be fielding all of my questions today.  Thanks!

    In this case I may not have explained myself clearly enough. If I use the Pen tool and draw a figure made up of, say, 3 lines (four mouse clicks), I'd like to know if you can define the length of any one of those segments.  If I select the figure after I've drawn it, I see its overall area (X by Y), but nothing about line length.  Putting it another way, I don't see how to select just one segment of the figure.

    Overall, what I'm trying to accomplish is this: I've placed an exploded view image of a machine in my document and I want to call out the various components.  I want an angled line coming off each part with a short horizontal line at the end of which I'll place the descriptive text.  The horizontal segments should all be the same length.  How would you go about doing this?

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    Bill HopcraftAuthor
    Inspiring
    August 31, 2017

    Malcolm, you've also been a big help over the past few days as I've begun to learn InDesign.  Thanks! 

    I actually began with your suggestion but then went in search of something better since doing all of the Joins was so tedious.  I've got lots of callouts to do.


    Hi Bill and Malcolm,

    I actually figured this out.  Here's what I did: 1) Draw a horizontal line and define its length; 2) Draw an angled length of arbitrary length; 3) Join the two lines; 4) Alt-drag to place a copy, putting the end of the angled line on the part I want to call out; 5) Direct select the horizontal segment and drag into position.  This preserves the horizontal segment's length and also keeps the end of the angled segment in position. 

    Cheers,

    Bill H

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