Drawing rectangles and ellipses
Illustrator provides a Rectangle tool, a Rounded Rectangle tool, and an Ellipse tool that let you quickly create rectangles (including squares) and ellipses (including circles). When you create an object with these tools, a center point appears in the object. You can use this point to drag the object or to align the object with other elements in your artwork. The center point can be made visible or invisible, but it cannot be deleted.
To create a rectangle or ellipse by dragging from an edge: - Select the Rectangle tool
, the Rounded Rectangle tool , or the Ellipse tool . - Position the pointer at one corner or edge of the shape you want to create, and drag diagonally until the shape is the desired size.
You can press any of the following to get specific results as you drag: - Shift to constrain the tool to multiples of 45°, creating squares with the rectangle tools and circles with the Ellipse tool.
- The spacebar to move a rectangle or ellipse as you draw it.
- Alt (Windows) or Option (Mac OS) to draw from the center outward.
To adjust corners of a rounded rectangle as you draw: - Select the Rounded Rectangle tool.
- Position the pointer where you want the rectangle to begin, and start dragging diagonally until the rectangle is the size you want.
You can press any of the following to get specific results as you drag: - The Up Arrow key or Down Arrow key to change the corner radius. When the corners are the desired roundness, release the key.
- The Left Arrow key to change to the minimum radius (most angular corners).
- The Right Arrow key to change to the maximum radius (most rounded corners).
To draw a rectangle or ellipse by specifying dimensions: - Select a Rectangle tool or the Ellipse tool.
- Do one of the following:
- Click where you want the top left corner of the object to be.
- Alt-click (Windows) or Option-click (Mac OS) where you want the center of the object to be.
Note: By default, the Rectangle and Ellipse dialog boxes display the dimensions of the last rectangle or ellipse you drew. The unit of measure is determined by the setting in the Document Setup or Units & Display Preferences dialog box. - Set any of the following options in the dialog box, and click OK:
- Width to specify how wide you want the shape to be.
- Height to specify how tall you want the shape to be.
To create a square or circle, enter a value in the Width text box and then click the word Height; this copies the width value to the Height text box.
- Corner Radius (rounded rectangle only) to specify the corner radius value you want the rectangle to have. The corner radius value represents the radius of a hypothetical circle drawn in the corner of the rectangle or square. The default corner radius is 12 points. A corner radius of 0 creates square corners.
Note: The corner style of the rectangle or square you draw is determined by the corner radius value you specify in either the Rectangle dialog box or the Corner Radius option in the General Preferences dialog box. Specifying a corner radius value in either dialog box updates the value in the other dialog box.
To display or hide the center points: - Choose Window > Attributes.
- In the Attributes palette, click either the Show Center button
or the Don't Show Center button .
|