Layers Magazine Tip of the Day – Adobe Illustrator CS3 Tip – How Does Your Last Rectangle Measure Up?
February 24, 2009 – 12:57 pm | by J. Rodriguez
Click and drag several times with your Rectangle tool (M) to draw some rectangles. Without looking in your Control panel to see the Width and Height, what was the size of the last rectangle that you drew? Click once with your Rectangle tool and you’ll know precisely. The drawing tools in Illustrator automatically pick up the specifications of the last object drawn with that tool, and will keep picking up those specs until you quit the application, or you change them in the tool’s Options window, or you click and drag with the tool.
Do the drawing tools always work this way? Actually, no! There are some exceptions. Sometimes similar tools, like the Rectangle tool and the Rounded Rectangle tool, borrow information from each other. If you draw a rectangle and then switch to the Rounded Rectangle tool and click in your document, it’s Width and Height will match the size of your most recently drawn rectangle.
Tip provided by Jeff Witchel, Adobe® Certified Training Provider.
