Drawing spirals
The spiral tool creates a spiral-shaped object of a given radius and number of winds; that is, the number of turns that the spiral completes from start to finish.
To draw a spiral by dragging: - Select the spiral tool
. - Position the pointer at the center of the spiral you want to create, and drag until the spiral is the desired size.
- As you drag, you can do any of the following:
- Drag the pointer in an arc to rotate the spiral.
- Shift-drag to constrain the tool to multiples of 45 degrees or to the angle specified in the Constrain Angle text box in the General Preferences dialog box.
- Hold down the spacebar to move the spiral.
- Press or hold down Up Arrow or Down Arrow to add or delete winds.
- Press ~ (tilde) to create multiple spirals.
To draw a spiral by specifying dimensions: - Select the spiral tool, and click where you want to place the center of the spiral.
By default, the Spiral dialog box displays the dimensions of the last spiral you drew. The unit of measure is determined by the unit of measure set in the Document Setup or Units & Undo Preferences dialog box. - In the Radius text box, enter the distance from the center to the outermost point in the spiral.
- In the Decay text box, enter the amount by which each wind of the spiral should decrease relative to the previous wind.
- Click the arrows or enter the number of segments in the Segments text box. Each full wind of the spiral consists of four segments.
- For Style, select the counterclockwise or clockwise option to specify the direction of the spiral, and click OK.
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