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At first you may think that the Reflection is
the same thing as the Mirror tool, but a little exploration will set
you straight - they're two completely separate tools.
The Reflection tool is useful when you want to flop (or flip, or flip-flop)
FreeHand objects. Select an object, a group of objects, or even a text
block, and choose the Reflection tool from the Toolbar. The cursor changes
to a vertical line with two tiny triangles on either side. Unrestricted
(that is, without the Shift key held down) you will make your selection
into a mirror image of itself somewhere else on the page. Wherever you
click the mouse will be the mid-way point between the original object
and its new, flipped location. It can get pretty hairy without the Shift
key held down, because as you click and hold (or drag), the flipped
object will continually move as you move the mouse. Therefore, it's
a good idea to press the Shift key prior to clicking the Reflection
tool on the page. That restricts the rotation to 45-degree increments.
Drag the cursor as close to horizontal or vertical as you can to get
a horizontal or vertical reflection. The closer you get to dragging
on a 45-degree angle, the more likely you'll get a 45-degree reflection.
The Reflection tool.
and the Mirror Xtra
Keep in mind that with the Reflection tool, the object you select will
be moved - nothing will remain behind. So if you're drawing something
that's symmetrical, be sure to clone the original path or object before
using the Reflection tool.
The Mirror Xtra tool works slightly differently. To use it you must
double-click it's icon if you've put it in your Main Menubar, or bring
the Xtras Toolbar into view by choosing Windows>Toolbars>Xtra
Tools. Clicking the tool's icon brings up the Mirror dialog box shown
below.
The Mirror dialog box.
Thankfully, you have a thumbnail view of the mirroring effect you're
creating. The choices in the top menu are Vertical, Horizontal, Horizontal
& Vertical, and Multiple. The first two choices act no differently
the Reflection tool. Horizontal & Vertical first flops the object
horizontally, then clones that pair and flops them vertically. You end
up with four identical - but mirrored - objects. The distance between
the four objects depends entirely on where you click the mouse.
We separate the wheels from the road when we use the Multiple option,
however. You have your choice of entering a number in the text field,
or you can use the slider to determine the final number of objects.
Beneath the slider the Rotate or Reflect menu will appear. Rotate will
clone your original object and place copies of it in a circle centering
on the point at which you click the mouse. Reflect makes a clone and
flops it horizontally, then rotates the pair of objects around the mouse
click. Beneath the Rotate/Reflect menu you'll see the Close Paths option.
If points in your mirroring end up close to (read that on top of) cloned
points, the paths will join. I wouldn't want to stake my job on the
reproducibility of connecting those points, though. It's best to do
some things manually.
One last note about mirrors and reflections: If you have gradient fills
on the objects, those gradients are mirrored or reflected as well. This
will result in some pretty bizarre lighting effects if you're not paying
attention. In order to overcome the problem, create a style from the
original object. Then when you're through with the Mirror Xtra or Reflection
tool select all of the objects and apply the newly-created style to
them. Look at the figure below. A single sphere was created and manipulated
with the Mirror Xtra set to 4 copies and Rotate. Each sphere was given
a different color and then made into a style. The group of four spheres
was mirrored with a setting of 8 copies and Rotate. Finally all the
spheres of one color were selected and the appropriate style applied.
Every
issue, we try to bring you some news about the new features, bugs, workarounds,
and other information that can make your FreeHand life more comfortable.
Calligraphic Stroke. You
might think this should be something in the Pencil tool's bag of tricks,
but it's actually an addition to the Stroke family (Basic, Brush, Custom,
PostScript, Pattern). The basic calligraphic stroke is an angled ellipse,
similar to what you would find in an old Speedball Pen set (D tip).
The beauty of the new tool is that you can create a shape that you can
use as the stroke. Look at this tool as a variation on Brushes.
Snap-To Object. With
Snap-to Object selected (it's at the bottom of the default Toolbar),
you can snuggle one object exactly up to another object. This used to
be a real chore, but now it's a piece of cake. As you drag an object
over another object's path, a red dot signifies that the cursor is directly
on the second object's path. The snap distance is defaulted at 8 pixels,
but you can change it in the Preferences panel. If you select the path
of an object and drag the path over another object, the same set of
icons will show you where the two paths will intersect.. It remains
sort of “sticky,“ so the object will snap-to when you release
the cursor.
Eraser Tool.
I never thought I'd use such a tool in FreeHand, but the
implementation is different than I expected. The size of the circular-tipped
eraser can be changed by clicking the left or right bracket keys ([
- ]) to make it smaller or larger, respectively. The tool also works
with pressure sensitive tablets for the utmost in flexibility. It works
by removing fills and leaving closed, filled paths in its wake. Holding
the Option/Alt key down while dragging constrains the erasure to straight
lines, and Shift + Option/Alt holds the erased path to a straight line
according to the Constrain angle. By the way, the Constrain menu item
is now found under File>Document Settings>Constrain. Same feature,
new address. The eraser tool also cuts through multiple selected objects.
You can cut holes in closed shapes, too. The result is a compound path.
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