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Editing anchor points and segments

Once you have selected one or more anchor points on one or more paths, you can move them to change the object's shape. You can also reshape the curved segments between two points, even when those anchor points are not selected.

Moving an anchor point

You can move any selected anchor point by dragging it with the Direct Selection tool  or Lasso Selection tool  . For more controlled positioning, you can press the arrow keys on the keyboard to move the anchor points by one nudge increment at a time. Alternately, you can hold down the SHIFT key while pressing for a larger 10x increment, or hold down the CTRL key while pressing the arrow key to move in a smaller 1/10 increment. The nudge increment is set in the Units and Grids page of the Options dialog box. If you have more than one anchor point selected, moving any one anchor point will move them all.

Moving control handles

Each anchor point on a Bezier curve has two control handles (also called tangent handles). In corner points, the handles are fully retracted. In curve points, the handles are extended and you can drag them with the Direct Selection tool or Lasso Selection tool. Generally, when you change one handle, the other handle changes, too. However, you can move a handle without moving the opposite handle by switching to the Convert Anchor Point tool. For more information about anchor point control handles and the Convert Anchor Point tool, see Corners versus curves.

Resizing anchor points

When you select two or more anchor points on a path (or on multiple paths) and then choose the Selection tool in the Toolbox (press V), Expression Design displays the Resize and Rotation handles around the bounding box of those anchor points. You can scale, rotate, or skew the selected anchor points as though they were an object. For more information about these controls, see Resize and rotation handles. Similarly, you can apply transformations to the selected anchor points with the Action Bar . For example, you could select the right side of a shape, and then use the Action Bar to scale it.

Here, three anchor points on this circle are selected (left) and then stretched by adjusting the  W value in the Action Bar (right)

 

Moving a segment

Instead of moving a selected anchor point, you can reshape a selected path or shape by dragging a line or curve segment between two anchor points. When you drag a segment of a path that sits between two Bezier curve points (or between a curve and a corner point ), Expression Design adjusts the control handles of the two adjacent anchor points for you. When you drag a segment between two corner points, Expression Design moves the two anchor points that are closest to the point where you clicked.

Reshaping a path

When the Convert Anchor Point tool is selected in the Toolbox , you can hold down the ALT key while dragging one or more selected anchor points on a path to move the selection and the adjacent anchor points near it. This is called the Magnet Selection tool. Anchor points close to the selected anchor point(s) will get moved the most; anchor points farther away are moved the least.

A single anchor point is selected (left). When you hold down the ALT key while dragging the anchor point with the Convert Anchor Point tool, you move nearby anchor points, too, similar to an elastic band. The anchor points farther away are moved less or not at all.