From the course: Deke's Techniques (2018-2021)

973 Snapping to a specific letterform in Illustrator

From the course: Deke's Techniques (2018-2021)

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973 Snapping to a specific letterform in Illustrator

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- Hey gang, this is Deek McClelland. Welcome to Deek's Techniques. Now, as we learned last week, the most recent version of Illustrator allows you to snap graphic objects to the outlines, aka letter forms, of live editable type. Problem is, any given line of type contains a whole bunch of letter forms, all vying for a snap. And so, for example, let's say you drag a graphic object and it keeps snapping to the top of a lowercase H when you want it to snap to the top of the dot on a lower case I. Then, you just need to right click on the I and choose snap to glyph I. Now, it's a tricky feature, and it takes a little time to get used to, but once you do it's one heck of a technique. Here, let me show you exactly how it works. All right, so, notice that the lines associated with cap height, X height, and baseline are solid lines, because those are absolute measurements where any specific font is concerned. Whereas the Ascender and descender lines are dashed because those are a little bit more subjective. And so, let's say what I want to do is move these descender lines so they're aligned with the flat edge at the bottom of the lower case P as opposed to the rounded edge at the bottom of the lowercase Y. In that case you want to right click on the lower case P and you should see this first command reads snap to glyph P. In my case, it's dimmed. And so, what gives? Well, there's three different culprits to look for. The first two are under the view menu. And so, you need to have smart guides turned on, as it is in my case, snap to glyph should be turned on as well. And so, where I'm concerned anyway, I'm good to go. And so, there's one other hidden feature. To get to it, press control K, or command K on the Mac, in order to bring up the preferences dialog box. The K comes from the keyboard increment option which is highlighted the moment you press a keyboard shortcut. Next, you want to switch to smart guides in this left-hand list, and you want to turn on this checkbox, alignment guides. It is on by default, but it's got to be on for this feature to work. At which point I'll click okay. And then, I'll once again, right click on that P. And, as you can see, the first command now reads snap to glyph P. All right, now click on these dash strokes associated with both of the descender lines, both the blue one and the orange one. Also, shift click on the words descender, so all four of these objects are selected. And now, I'll go ahead and zoom in on the bottom of this lowercase P. I'll start off by dragging this line downward while pressing the shift key to constrain the angle of my drag to exactly vertical. And, the reason I'm dragging it down for starters is just so I can get the most accurate results. That way the lines not trying to snap into alignment with itself. And now, I'll drag this guy up while, once again, pressing the shift key, so the angle of my drag is exactly vertical, until I snap into alignment with the bottom of that lowercase letter P. All right, I'll go and zoom out. And now, let's say, I don't want this descender line to align with this top point of the ascender associated with this lower case H. Perhaps I want to align it with the top of the dot associated with the lower case I. In which case I'll right click on that letter I. Notice now the first command is undue move. And that's because those lines are selected. I need them to be deselected. So, I'll escape out of that shortcut menu, and press control shift A, or command shift A on the Mac, in order to de-select the artwork. And then, I'll right click on the letter I and choose snap to glyph I. All right, now I'll select both of those Ascender lines by clicking on one shift, clicking on the other, and that will shift click on the words ascender, like so. And, I'll go ahead and zoom in on the I. I want you to notice how instead of being set against a black background the area around the I is highlighted ever so slightly. And now, I'll go ahead and drag this guy up while pressing the shift key, just so it doesn't accidentally snap into alignment with itself, and now I'll drag down while pressing the shift key until I snap to that glyph bound, as you can see, where that green smart guide is concerned. All right, though, that's not actually accurate. If I wanted to put the Ascender line exactly where it goes it should probably be at this point. So, the second to top anchor point, where the letter H is concerned. And, when I say anchor point, I'm talking about the actual path definition of this character, of the lowercase H, which is built into the font definition, because, after all, this is life editable text. And so, what I'm going to do is press control shift A, or command shift A, in order to de-select my artwork. Right click on any portion of that H and choose snap to glyph H. And now, I'll go ahead and press control Z, or command Z on the Mac, to undo that last movement which also helps to reselect that path outline. And now, I'll drag it down while pressing the shift key until it snaps into alignment with this guy right here, you'll want to snap to that anchor point, at which point your cursor should change to a white arrowhead. And now, I'll just go ahead and release in order to complete that drag. And now, press control shift A, or command shift A on the Mac, in order to de-select my artwork, and I'll press control zero, or commands zero on the Mac, to center my zoom. Now, notice that the H is still slightly highlighted. If you want to release that glyph, so that you don't snap into alignment with it in the future, then just go up here to the horizontal control panel and click on this button, release glyph. Or, another way to work, just in case your control panel isn't up on screen, you can right click on that H and choose release snap to glyph H. And so, if you've ever right clicked on a letter and wondered what in the world that first command is doing, well, now you know. Here inside the most recent version of Adobe Illustrator. Looking forward to next week? Well, just imagine that in addition to snapping to a specific letter form while dragging a path outline you can snap to that letter form while drawing the path outline, either with a shape tool or with the pen. Deek's techniques each and every week. Keep watching.

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