Measuring Angled Lines

[stillblue]

If I have angled lines in Illustrator CS2, how do I accurately measure the length of these lines? Using the measurement tool isn't accurate enough (I'm looking at 12+ inch lines and need to be accurate down to the 1/1000 of an inch). Thanks!

[The Repro Kid]

Illustrator is most accurate when zoomed to the largest zoom size. Even though you may have snap to point etc set up, the only way to be sure in Illustrator is to zoom in to maximum magnification.

You don't have to drag the measure tool to us it, you can also get a reading by just clicking on two points. This means you can zoom in and out between clicks to get the best possible reading with the least effort.

Put your display in artwork mode so you can't see any stroke width, just the construction lines. Click on your line with a selection tool to make the control points visible. Zoom into the first point at the maximum zoom magnification. Click on the first point. Click again on the first point to make the Distance in the info palette change to zero. Then zoom out to fit the page and zoom back in on the next point again, at the highest magnification. Click on it. You will now have the most accurate reading illustrator can give you.

The only other way would be to copy the line segments, paste them somewhere and use the rotate tool to rotate the line the a horizontal or vertical orientation, Then the info palette and the transform palette will both be able to show you how long the line is without measuring. This is also not as futile as it seems if you snap a guide to the first point, zoom in to choose this point as the point of origin for the rotation and then zoom out and rotate, the other end of the line will snap to the guide, you can also stop short of the guide and zoom in to the end point and then continue rotating at the zoomed magnification level. All this should also be done in artwork mode, not preview mode, so you see only construction lines. Anything that needs to accurate should be done in artwork mode.

[GuyB]

Or you can check the lengh in the "secret" debug pallette. (On a Mac press Shift, Option, Command, F12. I'm not sure what the shortcut to display the pallette is on a PC but you should be able to find it under Edit/ Keyboard Shortcuts/ Menu Commands/ Other Misc.) With the object selected check the length, this number is diplayed in points, divide by 72 to get inches.

It is certainly not a particularly user friendly window. Click on Objects and Object Tree to expand their contents. Under Object Tree click on a specific path name (if your path is selected the name will be bold), now look under Objects, near the bottom of the list you will see length followed by a number. This number is the path length in points. A potentialy helpfull other entry is the area, which gives you the area of a closed path.

[scottie]

Just use the line segment tool. Pick the tool, then click in your drawing, in the popup enter length and angle. Now, select and move and/or duplicate the segments to built whatever you're building. I'd use the direct select tool and pick an end point while holding down the option key. Then move to the end point you'd like to join watching for the tool to change...meaning your on the end point of the other segment. Then build away. You can zoom in and out to measure, if need be, as discribed above by the Kid.

[scottie]

If you have two monitor use my methode to draw your lines and set up GuyB's interigration screen method on the second screen and you'll be all set. I cain't seem to find the angle the line is drawn at, if that matters? Thanks for the tip GuyB

[GuyB]

Scottie,
If you ever need to know the angle, use the pen tool : after drawing the first line, the Info palette gives you the angle just by moving the pen tool.

[The Repro Kid]

Maybe I'm getting too old to learn new tricks, but I opened the Debug Palette and could not find any kind of useful info such as line lengths, angles, etc. In fact, the palette seemed to show more about objects than line segments. From the original post it sounds as if he's measuring the angle of line segments of an object, not the object itself. But I still couldn't find any useful measurements or angles in that palette, there were some lengths and widths listed in points but I think it was page size or something. All I had in the drawing was one three sided object and one horizontal pen line that had been rotated.

[PrepressGuru]

Scottie,
If you ever need to know the angle, use the pen tool : after drawing the first line, the Info palette gives you the angle just by moving the pen tool.

WONDERFUL tip here, GuyB, I never would have thought of that!