In Illustrator CS3, when you try to align points of a line made with the pencil tool of 5 point, how does it know that whether you want to align the points between themselves or the whole object relative to another one? When all nodes are selected, can Illustrator tell if u have selected the object or just all of its nodes?
In Illustrator CS3 enables you to align individual anchor points with the functions found in the Align panel (or the Control panel). Let us have a look at the Align functions. When you Choose many objects at a time and try to align them, Illustrator treats each of those objects as individual entities. However, if you choose several groups for aligning, the Align panel will treat each group as an individual entity. This is why you cannot align objects that are within a group when you select a group since the group is taken as one object).
To align the objects in a group, double click on the group to isolate it and click on Align. Then double-click to release it from isolation. You can also use the Direct Selection tool to pick a few elements within a group for aligning. But, if you use the Direct Selection tool to choose ALL of the elements within the group, the Align functions will realise that you have picked a group. And once again, it is considered a single object.
Take each anchor point within a single object and consider them as they are individual elements in a group. As long as you have a few of the anchor points selected the Illustrator allows you to align those points. But when you select all of the points on a path, the Align functions do not see the anchor points, they see the single path (again, think of the group).
In Illustrator CS2, when you select a few anchor points on a path, the Control panel lists the Path as the target. But in Illustrator CS3, the Control panel lists “Anchor Point” as the target. In fact, that’s how the context-sensitive Control panel knows to display all the new convert, handles, and anchor functions.
So, you have to choose all anchor points except one and align them. Then select the last anchor point and shift click on any other anchor point. Repeat the Align to get the desired result. It’s important to select the anchor points in the above-mentioned order. To align a specific object, click on a key object once you’ve made your selection. Clicking on an anchor point after it is selected will deselect all other anchor points. So, Illustrator uses the last anchor point as its “key” anchor point.
FreeHand has the ability to choose all of the anchor points in an object without selecting the entire object itself. For example, if you select the entire object with the pointer, the anchor points get selected, and you can align all of the anchor points in the object. Click on the path with the Pointer and the entire object gets selected, and will align as a single object.
