Illustrator: aligning objects by pixel precision
xGrape (88 pencils) | Wed, 2007-04-11 10:19
I'm working on a logo in Illustrator, where a line of text is put against a colored background (a square), and the top and bottom of the text is supposed to be exactly aligned along the background. This proves difficult as the height is changing based on my zoom level. I am no expert with vector graphics, but I know that it doesn't work the same way as pixel graphics in Photoshop. Still, there has to be a solution? I was thinking perhaps the text is the culprit, as it is probably given in points instead of pixels, but doing a "Create outline", which I assumed would be similar to "Convert to Symbol" from Flash, didn't help.
Any help is greatly appreciated!
Commenting on this Forum topic is closed.
What I do is MANUALLY align the lines of the background shape to the top and bottom of the font. However "This proves difficult as the height is changing based on my zoom level." is throwing me for a loop, I have never encountered that before. You see fonts scaling imperfectly when you use the scale tool (as it scales the font differently from a generic vector shape) so thats probably what you mean.
If you use the 'Zoom tool' (the magnifying glass icon) and click and drag a small rectangle over the are you wish to zoom to then it zooms AL the way in. Then press Command+Y (alt y on a pc) and that will put you into artwork mode. This way you can see the lines and shapes as outlines. When there use the open selection tool (white pointer) to adjust the line of the rectangle up or down to line up with the top of the text. Repeat on bottom of text.
Group the whole thing and they shouldn't shift around independently anymore. :)
"Try not, Do! or do not, there is no try."
-Yoda
Thanks for the tip, but it didn't help. And I'm using the zoom (magnifying glass), not scale. And it still shifts around. Like I said, I tried your tip, and grouped it together. Looks fine on max zoom, but once you zoom out one or more steps, it's imperfect again.
You can select directly (with the white arrow tool) only the top horizontal achor points (little squares when selected) by dragging a square around the intended area. Then make a right click and select "Average" and then select "horizontal" That will put all the anchor points ( and therefore the top of every object) at the same height, perfectly aligned.
mokenke
You may be seeing a problem that has more to do with your monitor's screen resolution than with Illustrator. I notice things such as you're describing sometimes, and when I zoom into see what's going on, I find perfection (oh, of COURSE!). How does a high-resolution printout look?
Mara
Also, just make the orange background bigger. Then, select the gray and white letters and the orange letters and choose Divide in the Pathfinder.
Where they touch will be split exactly and you can delete the extra orange pieces.
Thanks for the tip, but we already decided to do it the stupid way. Yes, the way that we all know works, but that stubborn me refused to go until I _knew_ I had no choice.
Pasting in a copy of the logo from Photoshop, into Illustrator, and then drawing along all the lines with the pen tool. Lucky for us the logo was fairly simple. If this doesn't work either, Ill try your tip :)
Don't you?
mokenke