Bobby Henderson
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8 votesBobby Henderson
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6 votes
An error occurred while saving the comment Bobby Henderson
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10 votes
An error occurred while saving the comment Bobby Henderson
commented
Just bumping this topic to bring up the idea of aligning text objects via their baselines and how that could solve a lot of problems. Sorry for the late response. The rival vector graphics app I was referring to (in that post from over a year ago) is CorelDRAW. Its Align/Distribute palette has options to align text objects to other objects via the baseline. Multiple text objects can be aligned or distributed via their baselines. Multi-line objects can be aligned to other objects via the first or last baseline. Those options can save a lot of time. If these kinds of options were available in conjunction with Illustrator's font height options it could make a lot of sign design style tasks much easier and faster to complete.
Bobby Henderson
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3 votesBobby Henderson
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24 votes
An error occurred while saving the comment Bobby Henderson
commented
I like the recent changes to Illustrator which adds font height options (such as sizing letters according to cap letter height) and the ability to align type objects by glyph bounds. But Illustrator really needs a straight-forward option to align or distribute type objects with other objects according to the type object's baseline. A couple of competing applications allow this option in their align/distribute palettes.
Currently the only solution for aligning type objects to other objects via the baseline is by manually moving the type objects and letting Smart Guides snap them into place. That process takes more time.
Bobby Henderson
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24 votes
An error occurred while saving the comment Bobby Henderson
commented
I'm bumping this idea due to a limitation in Adobe Illustrator with aligning anchor points. When using the direct selection tool to highlight anchor points on a path the options to align anchor points disappears in the align palette if all points on a path are selected. That can be a problem if I'm trying to align two points on a simple two point path. I either have to add additional points or manually align the path using smart guides. It would be really nice if one anchor point could have key object like behavior and stay locked in place. Certain rival vector graphics applications make it pretty easy to align anchor points in this kind of controlled manner.
Bobby Henderson
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974 votesCompleted (Comments Open) ·
AdminSanjit Samanta
(Senior Product Manager, Adobe Illustrator)
responded
Dear Users,
We have launched this feature in the latest release of Illustrator, 24.2. I request you to try out this feature and give us your feedback.
Thanks,
SanjitAn error occurred while saving the comment Bobby Henderson
commented
CorelDRAW was mentioned earlier as having no size limits to its art board. That is incorrect. CorelDRAW has a max art board size of 1800" X 1800". But really it's only practical to go up to about 1000" before the app hits zoom limits that bring up warning pop ups. I don't think any drawing program has an unlimited art board size.
An error occurred while saving the comment Bobby Henderson
commented
Working in a virtual scale can be a liability. In sign design and manufacturing you will always need to export the artwork to other applications and even other computers used by co-workers or even at a different company sub-contracting out certain specialized fabrication tasks. This situation can force the designer to plaster warning notes across the artwork inside the art file and written notes elsewhere to prevent the artwork from being fabricated as is without enlarging it to the correct, full size scale.
CorelDRAW will allow users to design things in scale by altering the ruler setup. In the Options dialog one can select "Edit Scale," which by default is set to 1:1, 1.0-inch Page Distance = 1.0 World Distance. The idea is to let someone design something seemingly big yet still fit it on a normal letter sized or legal sized sheet of paper for printing client sketches. I avoid this method because I've seen all sorts of odd, math errors when this scale artwork is enlarged to the intended real full size. The numbers often don't add up. I was dealing with this issue just recently, having to fix the artwork from another sign company. In my work I create production sign artwork at full size and then create separate client sketches with the artwork reduced down to defined scales, such as 1" = 1' or 3/8" = 1'.
Jay mentioned CorelDRAW having an unlimited art board size. That's not true. CorelDRAW has a 1800" X 1800" limit. And even before then, around the 1000" X 1000" the user will get pestered with a box saying "this zoom has exceeded the boundaries of the drawing space; your window will be adjusted accordingly."
Dedicated sign making applications, such as SignLab or FlexiSign Pro, have larger design spaces. From my own experience, dating back to the early 1990's using CASmate, some of these applications get a bit unstable when the drawing surface grows past 200 feet in any direction. I've witnessed strange errors (spectacularly bad ones in CASmate) when going that big and doing anything too complicated. I'd do something like weld a bunch of objects and see points disappear or other strange things. At smaller scales the same welding operation would work just fine.
Obviously there is some push and pull going on between art board size and precision of object editing.
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104 votes
Hello,
We have started working on the tech that allows us to enable the following:
- Ability to convert the outlined/expanded text back to live text.
- Ability to lock objects to a character/glyph of a live text, allowing users to change the text (properties) while the object stays locked into the character.
As we work through the complexities of handling different font families, font size, and other font properties, we would love to meet with you and share our thinking around it and understand :
- Your use cases and workflows that this feature will help you with.
- What is most essential for you.
- The workarounds that you currently use to achieve this.
If you are interested, please pick a time slot that works for you using this link. https://calendly.com/meetai/60min?month=2023-01
An error occurred while saving the comment Bobby Henderson
commented
CorelDRAW does not have the ability to convert missing fonts in a CDR document to editable outlines. Recent versions of CorelDRAW have allowed users to embed fonts in CDR documents. But that is an option. And the font embedding feature may not always work. I think the feature is similar to how font data can be embedded in Adobe PDFs.
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366 votes
Hi Everyone,
This feature has been shipped in August 2020 release (version 24.3)
You may read about this here: https://helpx.adobe.com/in/illustrator/using/whats-new/2020-3.html#vertical-align
Please update to the latest release using Creative Cloud desktop App: https://helpx.adobe.com/in/creative-cloud/help/creative-cloud-updates.html
Thank you for all the feedback.
Bobby Henderson
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An error occurred while saving the comment Bobby Henderson
commented
The thing I really want is to be able to vertically align a text object to a box or frame according to the text object's capital letter height. It's very difficult to do that accurately in Adobe Illustrator without converting the text to outlines and then manually centering the elements. This is very basic stuff for things like sign design. For something like a name plate label the text object has to be aligned on the background piece according to the capital letter height.
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20 votes
This is obviously not fixed and still needs a proper fix
Bobby Henderson
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7 votes
An error occurred while saving the comment Bobby Henderson
commented
Corel acquired a lot of the KPT properties, but did nothing with Vector Effects since it was an Illustrator plug-in and thus incompatible with CorelDRAW. Then Corel let a lot of the KPT stuff it was selling either languish or merge certain features into their PhotoPaint application.
I would like to see Adobe improve its Text on Path tool. Generally, I avoid setting type on curving paths (like circles) because I just can't stand how wacky the end results look. The letters' vertical stems, base lines and cap lines have no harmony with the curving path to which they're joined. To get the lettering looking reasonably correct you either have to carefully edit each letter's path by hand or even create the lettering from scratch as a drawing to scan and vectorize in the computer.
My guess as to why text on path and text warping features haven't been improved much since the 1990's is that so much of that kind of process is associated with cheesy design. I know I get triggered just from seeing people artificially stretching and squeezing fonts rather than using typefaces that are drawn as extended or condensed/compressed typefaces.
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58 votes
Hi everyone! Thank you for your feedback so far.
As we make progress, we wanted to hear your thoughts regarding the intended functionality of this solution. We are sharing two scenarios forproposed behavior of this functionality, please review these and let us know your feedback:
Scenario #1: The area calculation will only consider the path geometry of an object and not include the stroke weight as part of the computed area. To calculate the area of the stroke, the object can be Expanded so that a separate compound path is created for the stroke.
Scenario #2: Appearance-altering effects (e.g., Drop Shadows, Gaussian Blurs) that do not modify the underlying path geometry will not influence the area calculation. We will continue to calculate the area of the actual closed path.
We have also attached a visual reference for these scenarios to this post. Please let us know your thoughts!
Bobby Henderson
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An error occurred while saving the comment Bobby Henderson
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Years ago I used Telegraphics' free "Path Area" plug-in to determine the path length of single or multiple selected objects. The plug-in's dialog box would display both the length and area of any selected objects. That plug-in hasn't worked with the last few versions of Adobe Illustrator. It's effectively a dead plug-in.
Currently Illustrator will display Path Length values under the Document Info tab (when Objects are checked in the options fly-out). I would like path area to be added to the values shown for Paths.
Right now my only option for determining path area is using the Dynamic Measure tool, part of Astute Graphics' VectorScribe plug-in. It's a useful tool for certain tasks, but it does not work on multiple selected objects. If I want to determine the physical area of a group of letters I'm going to rout out of a sheet of aluminum I have to select/hover over each object one at a time, write down the values and then add up the results. It's a tiresome, annoying process.
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47 votes
I am glad to remind all who voted for this feature that it is now possible to set a font size as x-height or cap height with Show Font Height Options toggle enabled in Character panel menu.
Some issues still remain, yes, like, wrong size calculation if a font has rounded stems that end below baseline (https://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/601447-illustrator-desktop-bugs/suggestions/44639661-font-height-options-misbehave-with-rounded-fonts), or inability to focus the dropdown with Tab (https://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/601447-illustrator-desktop-bugs/suggestions/41836618-font-height-options-tab-order), or calculating font height by measuring glyphs instead of reading the actual value within the font (https://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/601447-illustrator-desktop-bugs/suggestions/41615035-cap-height-setting-not-using-font-cap-height), but overall this is done, works, and super cool, don’t you think?
An error occurred while saving the comment Bobby Henderson
commented
For sign design work and creating graphics for LED-based signs it's crucial to be able to size, position and align type objects according to capital letter height. Adobe Illustrator currently has no features to support this kind of work, which forces me to hop back and forth to other programs (like CorelDRAW and Flexi) that directly support those features or have work-arounds that won't drive designers crazy.
Illustrator's type functions are still confined to the paradigm of setting type for the printed page. If I want lettering whose capitals are exactly 20 pixels tall for display on a LED jumbotron Adobe Illustrator will not deliver that. It sizes that blue box around the lettering to 20 pixels, not the actual capitals -which makes the lettering even more fuzzy. I'm trying to at least have the cap line and base line hit that pixel grid exactly. The same problem exists in physical lettering used on signs, be it 24 inch tall channel letters on a building sign for 1.5" tall letters on a door graphic. You can't size those objects exactly without a bunch of time-consuming work arounds. And then for something very basic, aligning a text object over the center or a box or some other container, Adobe Illustrator won't deliver the correct result, aligning the text according to the capital letter. Instead, if you align a text object over another container the text object is placed too high and you have to manually correct the error. It's very frustrating.
Bobby Henderson
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An error occurred while saving the comment Bobby Henderson
commented
For years I've been making feature requests to the Illustrator team to provide the option to size, position and align type in reference to the capital letter height of a type object. Some of my more recent requests (with illustrated examples) seem to have been flushed with the changes made to this user request forum. This would be very useful for sign design purposes and any other project where absolute cap letter height specification is needed. For instance, I create a lot of graphics for LED-based variable message center signs. Type tends to look a lot better when the baseline and cap height line of letters corresponds to the pixel grid of the LED display. For instance if I make cap letters exactly 20 pixels tall they're going to look sharper while letters 19.47 pixels tall are going to look fuzzy in all directions.
All fonts have built-in numerical values for dimensions, such as overall UPM size, ascender, descender, cap height and lowercase x-height. For example Gotham Book has an overall UPM size of 1000, ascender is 800, descender is -200, cap height is 700 and x-height is 517.
What I find strange is the blue box Illustrator puts around all type objects doesn't correspond at all to the UPM size of a letter. If I type a capital "E" in Gotham Book, size that blue box to 1 inch tall, the "E" should come out to .7" when converted to outlines, right? No, it comes out to .6398" tall.
I'm not asking Adobe to replace traditional type layout standards with this approach. People who are used to setting type on the printed page, thinking in terms of baseline grids and distance from one baseline to the next get pretty defensive whenever this suggestion is made. "That's not how type works," is the common retort. When you're doing sign design or setting type in other kinds of mediums the baseline grid approach just doesn't work. You have to go by what you can actually see: physical letter sizes and distance between those letters.
In regards to various scripts that reference M-height or x-height and scale letters accordingly, that approach only works with typefaces whose squared off letters align perfectly with the baseline and cap height line. Clean, sans serif typefaces like Helvetica and Gotham work alright with that system. The scripts don't work well with many decorative typefaces and script typefaces. That's where using the font file's internal dimensions becomes critical for accurate sizing, position and alignment. Like if I want to set Sloop Script with 2" tall letters and vertically center it in a 3" tall box I'm not going to be able to do that even with the various letter sizing scripts out there.
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16 votes
You can align to an object you choose to be the key one.. Click the object you want to use as a key the second time and Ai will use a bolder edge to highlight it.
More details here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miVLI8rwO1o https://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/using/moving-aligning-distributing-objects.html
An error occurred while saving the comment Bobby Henderson
commented
I don't like the extra clicks Illustrator requires of users to align objects. Certain rival applications automatically hold the first object or last object clicked or shift-clicked in place and the other objects align to it. I really dislike Illustrator's approach to aligning anchor points. These very simple things make Illustrator a chore to use for technical drawing purposes.
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78 votes
Hi Everyone,
Thanks for this feedback. This has been avialble since June 2020 release (version 24.2). Now, when you’ll select a single object/group, Align To setting will default to Align To Artboard.
Please update to the latest release using Creative Cloud desktop App: https://helpx.adobe.com/in/creative-cloud/help/creative-cloud-updates.html
Thank you for all the feedback.
Thanks,
Varun
An error occurred while saving the comment Bobby Henderson
commented
I just wish Illustrator could perform alignment operations like several other graphics programs I either currently use or have used in the past. When shift-clicking two or more objects to align either the first object clicked or the last object shift-clicked stays put an all other objects align to it. I can't stand all the extra clicks Illustrator requires of its users. And anchor point alignment is a pretty big pain in the backside. This really hurts Illustrator for technical drawing purposes. As for alignment preferences, that's something easily incorporated into a palette or toolbar. For example, CorelDRAW provides 5 object alignment preference buttons in its align and distribute palette to align objects to active objects, page edge, page center, grid or a numerically specified point. The same palette has 4 different text alignment preference buttons and a couple distribute preference buttons. This is on top of the six alignment buttons and eight distribution command buttons. You don't have to hunt through a bunch of drop down menus or preference boxes to get to any of that stuff.
I often think many of the push notifications I see feel like they're trying to sell something instead of be of any help. This criticism goes far beyond Adobe and applies to many other software developers. It's as if the sales department and gang of "stock trader bros" are exerting an outsized influence on user interface design.