- Drawing Objects
- Using the Direct Selection Tool
- Drawing Basic Shapes
- Drawing Stars
- Drawing Simple Lines
- Drawing Straight Paths
- Drawing Curved Paths
- Mixing Straight and Curved Path Segments
- Attaching Curves at Angles
- Adding, Deleting, and Converting Anchor Points
- Extending and Connecting Open Paths
- Splitting Paths
- Creating Corner Effects
- Making Compound Paths
- Creating Paths with the Pencil Tool
- Editing Paths with the Smooth and Erase Tools
- Using Type as a Graphic Element
- Using Outlines as Masks
- Using Outlines as Text Frames
Creating Paths with the Pencil Tool
A new tool in InDesign 1.5 will be welcome to those of you for whom the Pen tool remains a challenge. The Pencil tool enables you to draw paths freehand. What this lacks in precision it makes up for in ease of use. It is especially handy for users of graphics tablets and pressure-sensitive pens. Unlike the Pencil tool in Illustrator, this tool always creates new paths and cannot be used to edit existing paths.
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Select the Pencil tool from the Tools palette.
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Click-drag to create a freeform path (Figure 3.50). You can edit this path the way you would any path by editing its anchor points.
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Double-click the Pencil tool in the Tools palette to view its preferences (Figure 3.51).
Fidelity controls the distance (in pixels) that curves can stray from the drawn path.
Smoothness controls the percentage of smoothing applied by InDesign when you use the tool.
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Choose to leave the path selected or not.
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