Rulers

[Kenneth]

If you are a complete novice like I am and want to draw a straight line with the Shape Editor Tool make sure you turn on the rulers (CTRL-L) in order to get both ends of the line at the same vertical position. I don't know how much time I wasted trying to make a straight line without the rulers.

[ss-kalm]

If you press CTRL whilst drawing the points with the shape editor it will constrain the angles as set in the options. Typically if you are near enough horizontal/vertical, it will constrain the angle to horizontal/vertical. Much better than using rulers.

[amoore]

Or, you could turn on the Rulers, drag down a horizontal guide, switch to the Layer where you want the line, then click two points on the guide. Voila!

Similarly, if you want a line of a specific length, you can drag out two vertical guides the desired distance apart and use the intersections of the horizontal and vertical guides for your start and end points. To set the positions of the vertical guides, go to Layer Gallery | Guides layer | Properties | Guides tab, or just rightclick on the individual guide and choose Properties.

Snap to Guides is turned on by default (Windows menu). If you've turned it off, you may want to turn it on again for this operation.

[amoore]

If you press CTRL whilst drawing the points with the shape editor it will constrain the angles as set in the options.

Yes, that's correct for the Shape Editor.

I rarely draw in the Shape Editor because the cusps and curves never seem to be where I want them. So I draw with the Pen or Freehand tool (mostly Pen), then use the Shape Editor to edit.

So now, you've got two ways to do it.

[zaphodeist]

In Freehand Tool hold down CTRL+ALT to draw constrained angle (including horizontal & vertical) straight line

[Kenneth]

Thanks all. I now have a couple ways to do it, hold down ctrl using shape editor, hold down ctrl + alt in freehand and use the rulers in the shape editor.

[amoore]

Interesting how we perceive. I never think of drawing straight lines with the Freehand tool.

And I also see why I've always thought the CTRL combinations didn't work for me. The first segment is rarely straight. Sometimes I can jockey it without too much trouble. Other times, it doesn't seem to get straight no matter how much I work at it. (X,y whole pixels, perhaps?)

In the Pen tool, segments after the first are rarely fuzzy, CTRL or no CTRL. But I rarely draw from scratch with multi-segment lines. FTM, I rarely draw from scratch. Mostly, I manipulate clipart and cut objects out of photos. When cutting photos, I use the Pen tool to do the initial clip line because I can do it fairly quickly and I don't have to think about curves and cusps. And on a photo clip line, I'm not looking for straight lines.

BTW, the method with the guides is useful when you need to resize a line to a specific width and Xtreme won't do it because the line height is zero.

[Kenneth]

amoore, how about explaining how to drag out two vertical guides, I can get the left one, but haven't been able to get one on the right.

[Kenneth]

Never mind just figured it out. Didn't realize that I had to drag both out from the same side. Should have figured it out sooner since I had no ruler on the right side.

[kinetica]

Hello Kenneth,

You can drag out as many as you like, 5, 10, dozens, both horizontal and vertical. In addition to this, if you draw a Line or a Shape on the guide layer (you need to open the Layers Gallery to see it), it becomes a Guide and works with snap-to-guide etc. It's a very, very useful tool.