Illustrator help

[ladybird]

Ok, I am not sure if this is the right spot for this but here goes. I am a former freehander who is finally, reluctantly and rather painfully, converting to illustrator. I am trying to make a simple symmetrical leaf shape. I triedto do this by making half the leaf shape, reflecting and coping it, and merging the two. When I merge the two, it erases the stroke from the center reflecting line, but still leaves that pathway there. This also causes the strokes of the intersecting points to overlap making two separate spikes where the tip of the leaf should be. How can I fix this? I just want a simple symmetrical leaf shape without overlapping strokes. Thanks.

[pirate]

Try zooming in real tight before you join the two endpoints, maybe nudge one to the right a bit so the points don't overlap, then do the join. You may need to delete the extra point you'll get to make it be a sharp point.
Make the shape a stroke with no fill, and after you join the two shapes, then add your fill back in and put the center line back in.

HTH

[Lilithness]

if you no longer see the stroke in the middle, but you still see the blue path line you can expand the shape on the pathfinder palette and that will completely merge your two shapes together into one.

as far as getting the two shapes to line up better so that you don't get double points, i think your best bet is to zoom in very close like pirate says and try to line up the top points. you may need to manually clean up any weirdness where the top and bottom merge. unfortunately, i don't think illustrator has any nice way of exactly aligning shapes side by side. i haven't found it at least :/

[Riefnu]

A way I like to do when making any special path shape is to make a circle with the circle shape tool, add some extra anchors, and edit the circle into the shape that I wanted.

But if you're trying to get it in just this certain way, remember that you can isolate the selection (fast double click?), and edit individual pieces of it after you've merged it. So maybe that will help with the extra spikes.

[salsa]

For symmetry, I like to draw with the grid visible. Also, when you make the line down the center of the leaf, hold down the shift key to get a perfectly vertical line. After you've made a copy and reflected it, turn on the "snap to grid" option to help line the centers on the grid lines. This should help.

You might be interested in the tutorials in this blog: http://veerle.duoh.com/, she usually has some great tips on drawing simple and symmetrical shapes in Illustrator.

[Craig B]

symmetry is easy, and Illustrator can quickly directly align.

1. highlight both shapes with the arrow tool
2. after highlight, click on the shape you're aligning to (essentially the shape you don't want to move.) Nothing appears to happen unless you have CS4 which kind of shows a "bolded" selection on the item clicked.
3. Open your align palette and choose horizontal distribute spacing (make sure it's set to the default of 0 in.)

That's it. And yes, expanding your joined shapes expands it into a fully outlined shape.

You could also grab the 2 points in question (using the direct select tool) before merging your shapes and choose object/path/average .... choosing horizontally, vertically or both which will align the points in question. That will prevent overlapping.

[Lilithness]

symmetry is easy, and Illustrator can quickly directly align.

1. highlight both shapes with the arrow tool
2. after highlight, click on the shape you're aligning to (essentially the shape you don't want to move.) Nothing appears to happen unless you have CS4 which kind of shows a "bolded" selection on the item clicked.
3. Open your align palette and choose horizontal distribute spacing (make sure it's set to the default of 0 in.)


i love illustrator and use it often but i never knew this. it will definitely make things easier from now on. thanks craig!

[Craig B]

I'm glad it helps Lilith ... The "second click" after highlighting multiple items sets that item to the item being aligned to. Useful for center and left/right aligning to so that the item you want to stay put stays put.

[seamas]

When I do things like this I sort of rough out one side of the shape -I keep the path open, and with my direct select tool select the 2 end points that I want to have on a single axis.
Ctrl Alt + J, and select either the vertical or horizontal axis.

Then with the select tool (V) I reflect the whole object, uset the reflect tool (choose appropriate axis and copy).
Then align the shapes with 0 space, and join anchor points (Ctrl J), chose whether the joints are corners or smooth.

[PrintDriver]

I just use the direct selection tool, click the point I want to join, check the measurements palette and move the other piece to match the numbers.

I like Craig's answer too.