From the book
Creating polygons
Creating polygons
Now you’ll create a triangle using the Polygon tool (
) to finish the lamp. Polygons are drawn from the center by default, which is different than the other tools you’ve worked with so far.
- Click and hold down the mouse button on the Ellipse tool (
) in the Tools panel, and select the Polygon tool (). - Click the Fill color in the Control panel, and select the yellow color you’ve already used with the tool tip values “C=5 M=0 Y=90 K=0.” Press the Escape key to hide the Swatches panel.
- Position the pointer above the top yellow rectangle. Drag to the right to begin drawing a polygon, but don’t release the mouse button yet. Press the Down Arrow key three times to reduce the number of sides on the polygon to three (a triangle), and don’t release the mouse yet. Hold down the Shift key to straighten the triangle. Without releasing the Shift key, drag left or right until the Smart Guides measurement label displays a width of approximately 0.5 in. Release the mouse, and then release the modifier key.
- Select the Selection tool (
) in the Tools panel, and drag the triangle from its center until the bottom of the triangle snaps to the top of the yellow rectangle beneath it. The word “intersect” appears when it is snapped. Don’t worry about it snapping to the edges of the rectangle beneath it, since you’ll edit the width and align it soon. - With the Selection tool, drag the top point of the triangle down until the measurement label shows a height of approximately 0.22 in.
- In the Transform panel, change the Width (W) to 0.6 in to match the rectangle beneath it.
- Choose Select > Deselect.
Next, you’ll draw a triangle with the Polygon tool. By default, the Polygon tool draws a six-sided shape, but we need a three-sided shape. As you draw, you will press arrow keys to increase or decrease the number of sides on the shape.
TIP
You could also click in the Document window with the Polygon tool () selected and edit the shape values in the Polygon dialog box.
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