relative positioning

[ykler]

I often want to make the spatial relationship between entity A and entity B the same as the spatial relationship between entity C and entity D. Right now, the way I achieve that is to draw a rectangle that has one corner at entity A and an opposite corner at entity B. Then I drag the rectangle over to where C and D are. Then I adjust C and D so they coincide with the corners of the rectangle. Finally, I delete the rectangle.

This is a little tedious and has to be redone whenever I change anything that affects the relative position of A and B (or C and D). Is there a better way?

 

[MarcusStringer]

Um...what?


Marcus

http://www.midlandtypesetters.com.au

 

[ykler]

I guess my message wasn't clear. Let me try giving an example. Suppose that I have anchor points A, B, C, and D and A is three inches above and one inch to the left of B. I want to make C three inches above and one inch to the left of D. Then, say, I move anchor point A a little. I want an easy way of getting C to move in the same way as A. You can use a rectangle as a sort of measuring device to measure the relative position between A and B, which is what I have been doing. I'm pretty new to Illustrator, so maybe I'm overlooking something that would be obvious to someone with more experience.

 

[MarcusStringer]

you can group the two objects... then drag the centre
or
Under you transform Pallet simply type in the width then select the one and type in the same with.

There are heaps of other ways as well, like aligning on a ruler guide etc.

Marcus

http://www.midlandtypesetters.com.au

 

[ykler]

Grouping seems like a pretty good solution to the problem of moving things together except that it has the annoying property of moving the objects into the same layer, which I might then have to manually undo. (Can't use Illustrator's undo feature because that would undo the move first.) I will have to look into the transform stuff more. My first impression was that you had to type measurements in rather than being able to move things by dragging, but maybe that was wrong.

I guess it is not too bad to continue using rectangles to do relative positioning the first time if I can use grouping or some other method to make adjustments later.

I use guides all the time, but only after reading your message did I realize I could use them to achieve the effect I am getting with rectangles by grouping the guides and then moving two or four guides as a group. I don't know if that would be any easier than using rectangles, but it's nice to know about different ways of doing things.

Thanks for the help!