The Rest of the Team
The other commands on the Arrange menu are straightforward, so we will
just describe them briefly. To see how they are used in various exercises
throughout these chapters, consult our index.
Order
This is DRAWs gateway to creating stacking options of objects.
Most drawing programs offer ways to place objects in front of all others
and behind all others. DRAW does one better by allowing you to specify
precisely which object the selected one should be placed in front of or
behind. With an object selected, go to Arrange Ø
Order Ø In Front Of (or Behind). DRAW
offers you a pointing arrow, and once you click on an object on the page,
DRAW instantly stacks the selected object accordingly.
Its good to know the hotkeys here:
| Move to front
|
| Shift+PgUp
|
| Move to back
|
| Shift+PgDn
|
| Move up one place
|
| Ctrl+PgUp
|
| Move back one place
|
| Ctrl+PgDn
|
You can also reach all of these commands from the context menu, the one
that appears when you right-click on the selected object.
Group
Theres not much to say about this venerable command. It throws
a lasso around all selected objects. Ctrl+G and Ctrl+U have become
second nature to keystroke lovers. Note the presence also, on both the
Arrange and context menus, of an Ungroup All command. Many pieces of clipart
come with groups inside of groups. This command will find the groups nested
within other groups and ungroup them, too.
You can always select objects within groups by holding Ctrl as you click.
DRAW will display rounded selection handles as your cue that you are working
with objects within a group.
Combine and
Break Apart
These two cousins are opposites. Combine takes selected objects and forces
them into one curve. As we discussed in Chapter 3, overlapping objects
appear as hollow cutouts. Meanwhile, Break Apart does the reverse, seeking
out any subpaths to a curve and extracting them as separate objects.
The notable exception is with text. Two strings of artistic text, when
combined, become one string of text, still editable. One string of text,
when broken apart, becomes single-character individual letters. A double-deck
headline, when broken apart, becomes two separate strings consisting of
the first line and the second. The same in all of these cases goes for
paragraph text.
If, however, you combine a string of text with a nontext object, DRAW
shows no such reverenceit converts everything to a single curve.
Both commands are available via hotkeys (Ctrl+L and Ctrl+K, respectively)
and from the context menu.
Lock and
Unlock
Any object created or imported can be locked and made impervious to change.
When you select a locked object, the selection handles look like little
padlocks. No change can be made to a locked object until it is unlocked,
from Arrange Ø Unlock or from the
context menu.
Shaping
This is the gateway to the three noteworthy commands for dealing with
overlapping objects. Intersect, Trim, and Weld are the stars of Chapter
11.
Separate
It might sound like Break Apart, but this command is different. While
you can use Break Apart on any object that contains subpaths, Separate
is reserved for taking apart objects that have been altered with one of
DRAWs special effects.
When you apply commands such as Fit Text to Path, Blend, Extrude, Contour,
and Drop Shadow, you create a dynamic link between multiple objects. That
link allows the effect to adjust as you move or edit one of the objects.
For instance, if you move or recolor one of the objects of a blend, the
entire blend adjusts. This link stays live until you kill it, and you
do that with Separate.
This is not an Undo commandthe appearance of the effect remains.
You are telling DRAW to stop thinking of the objects as part of a dynamic
effect, but rather just a collection of objects that happen to look like
the effect.
Figure 5.4 shows the result of separating an extruded star. Until we
moved the face of the extrusion, you wouldnt have known anything
had happened. But once separated, each object that makes up the effect
can be individually reached.
FIGURE
5.4 Separating a special effect is like giving
it a lobotomy: it no longer remembers what it once was.
Convert to
Curves
This is the command that strips VIP status from rectangles, ellipses,
polygons, and strings of artistic text. In each of those objects, DRAW
reserves a certain reverence. It will not allow conventional node-editing
to them, using the Shape tool instead for different purposes (such as
rounding corners of rectangles, making pie slices from ellipses, and kerning
characters of text).
The Convert to Curves command is what makes the mighty fall. Once converted,
these special objects become distinctly unspecial. Once converted, you
can node-edit a rectangle as if it were just another common curve. Same
with text.
Convert Outline
to Object
This brand new command separates an outline that has been applied to
an object and makes it its own object. It converts it to a closed shape,
however thin, and that has enormous implications for designers who have
long wanted to apply a pattern to an outline, instead of just a uniform
color. Once an outline is converted to an object, it can take any fill
pattern that DRAW offers. Creating fountain-filled outlines has historically
been very difficult; now it is easy.
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