Align/distribute problem/issue

[PeteA]

Hi there - we've now purchased Xara for our business and are slowly moving away from Freehand. We've encountered another issue though with the pesky graphs....aligning and distributing!

When tracing a graph (redrawing) we would normally draw the axis line, then draw the tick marks and align the top tick mark to the top of the line and then the bottom tick mark to the bottom of the line. We would then deselect the y axis line and select all the tick marks and distribute them evenly = axis drawn.

However in Xara the first 2 work fine but when we then select the ticks and select distribute centres, for some reason Xara pushes the top and bottom tick marks out ever so slightly - is this a Xara thing or are we missing something???! Either way our scientific redraws have to be extremely accurate and this is a pain

I've uploaded a file to show you what I mean - you'll need to zoom into the top ticks to see the problem. Any help very much appreciated

[Albacore]

De-select the line and it will work after align the tick top & bottom. It is not the best feature after FH's align tool.

[PeteA]

De-select the line and it will work after align the tick top & bottom. It is not the best feature after FH's align tool.

thanks Albacore sorry - we do deselect the line - only the ticks are selected. If you are distributing then Xara shouldn't push the top and bottom ticks out (which they do). It works but it isn't accurate due to the slight pushing out of the top and bottom ticks. See the file I uploaded and zoom into the top ticks and you'll see what I mean

[PhilM]

Hi Pete,

I think you've found a bug. The distribution function is getting confused by the line width of the ticks.

There is a workaround: In the Selector tool make sure the "Scale line widths" button is set before you perform the distribution.

This is not ideal because for technical, accurate drawings I would always recommend doing everything with the "Scale line widths" button unset. So you may need to be careful to unset the button again after the distribution.

I will enter this into the jobs database for consideration in future releases.

PhilM

[PeteA]

thanks Phil - couldn't understand it - however the workaround saves us for now (albeit with yet another button to remember).. many thanks

[DanDaBear]

Or you could place two ticks, one at the top and one at the bottom and then do a blend from one to the other, changing the number of steps to the number of in between ticks that you want.

[Noel Williams]

Choose 'distribute equi-spaced' (instead of 'distribute centres'). I think this gives the result you're after.
OOps, sorry ignore my suggestion. I had 'Scale line widths' selected, in which case both alignment options work.