Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
Touch Type transformations
Illustrator combined the onscreen interactivity of the Transform bounding
box with the ability to use the Character panel to individually rotate, scale,
and position characters, and came up with the Touch Type tool (find it in the
Tools panel with the Type tools [Shift-T], or click the button in the Character
panel). The tool is designed to work with any input device (including your
fingers on touch-enabled devices), but there are some limitations to what you
can do with it. Unlike using the Character panel to rotate and scale
characters, the Touch Type tool directly affects only one character at a time.
Unlike placing characters on their own layer with cut and paste, then flipping
or skewing the entire object, you can't flip or skew characters with the Touch
Type tool. However, instead of having to numerically rotate a character a
negative 27°, scale it by 133%, and reposition its baseline by 35 points, simply
click to select the character with the Touch Type tool, then start interactively
transforming the character. In order to quickly return to a “neutral” position,
create a character style for the base settings before you start playing with the
Touch Type tool. To reset the entire text block and remove all character
formatting, choose Reset Panel from the Character panel's pop-up menu.
GORDON/CARTAGRAM, LLC
Using the Touch Type tool to interactively rotate, scale, and position text characters
while they remain within one editable block of text (see
Steve Gordon's lesson in the
CC
lesson and gallery
sec-tion, later in this chapter)
