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Understanding snapping and the pixel grid
Hello all,
I’ve used Illustrator for years and I’ve sometimes run into problems where I can’t get a path “straight” vertically or horizontally. I try to nudge or drag the points into alignment, but Illustrator just won’t me get the point in the right spot to make a perfectly straight line. And then after sufficient screwing around I nail it by eye. It’s a pain.
I know you can turn on and off the pixel grid in the new document window, and individually for shapes in the transform panel. This sometimes helps. But sometimes I zoom way in and see points on either side of a pixel and I still get aliasing. Sometimes align to pixel grid seems to do nothing.
Now I am doing technical work and this is driving me nuts. I want Illustrator to “snap” my points to make perfectly straight or vertical lines. I don’t want it to let me put the path in a “wrong” point.
What combination of pixel grid / snapping / grid settings do I need? Is there any tutorials out there about this?
Thanks
Cassidy
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4 Replies
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To get snapping to work in Illustrator, you need to view >> smart guides. Once the guides are on you will be bale to snap. The default snapping tolerance, is pretty good for most purposes at 4 pts.
Align to pixel grid should only be used for web/video work, not print. The way this works is in the transform palette you can assign a preference of align to pixel grid to each item. In the flyout menu of the transform palette is ” Align New Objects to Pixel Grid”, when this is on, that basically check the align to pixel grid box for each new time you create.
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I’m having the same issue. I’m creating tiny icons and it’s key that the lines, between two points, be perfectly straight and on the pixel grid.
I’m using Illustrator CC. In my Transform window I have “Alight to Pixel Grid” checked on.
There’s gotta be an way to straighten a line between two points???
Here is a screenshot with circles around the two points that I’m trying to line up vertically, and an arrow pointing at where the line is going jagged. I keep dragging the right point up to nudge it onto the same vertical point as the left, but when I let go it falls back down to where it currently is.
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I haven’t used it with a pixel grid, but I usually just select the points with the Direct Select tool, then Object > Path > Average
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That was exactly what I was looking for, thanks!
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