how to multiply in AI.

[technowolf]

Hi
can someone tell how to multiply objects in illustrator . I always do this in winpcsign but this time i need it in ai. and i just cant find it, even in the book.
thanks for helping
Alex

 

[Idea Design]

ctrl-shift-m and copy... then ctrl d to repeat.

Or you can click and drag holding the alt key.

 

[Sign_Boy]

Effect
Distort & Transform
Transform

Hope that helped

 

[technowolf]

What i want is to do many copies of lets say circles (1000) with a gap of 0.1 inch between

 

[SebastienL]

Select the object you want to repeat. While dragging it, hold the ALT key to duplicate. Command-D ar control-D will repeat the last move. If you hold the SHIFT key, the object will only move left-right or up-down or at 45 degrees from the original.
Hope this is of use to you.

Where you at in Canada?

 

[Sign_Boy]

Effect
Distort & Transform
Transform

Hope that helped

 

[Capital Signs]

Word.

 

[Sign_Boy]

will multiply things for you:Big Laugh

 

[Fred Weiss]

Illustrator remarkably does not seem to think its users have any need for a "step and repeat" feature ... which is what most applications term this procedure. If you do your math manually, you can do a step and repeat using the Blend feature.

Let's say you want 10 1" circles with a gap of .1" between them.

• Set first circle at X=0
• Duplicate the circle and move it to X=10.9" (10 1" circles + 9 .1" gaps)
• Align the two circles on the x axis
• Select both circles
• Go to Object > Blend > Blend Options and set Spacing to "Specified Steps", enter 8 for the number of steps it will fill in. (Total needed - 2 ends = total steps).
• Go to Object > Blend > Make to execute the blend.
• Finally go to Object > Expand

Do the same thing now on the other axis with the group of circles.

The other way to do this would be to create all the circles, align them on axis, set the position of the end circles by calculating their positions manually, select all and use the Distribute command.

 

[RobGF]

If you want a zillion, do what Fred suggested.

If you want a few, draw your object and select it. From there you can go to OBJECT, TRANSFORM, MOVE. From there you can enter in distances and angles for a movement OR a copy. One the object has been copied once, OBJECT, TRANSFORM AGAIN (Command-D on Mac, guessing CTRL-D on PC) will continue to copy (or move, depending on which you had originally selected) for as many times as you continue.

Once you have a bunch of your object going in one direction, you could select them all and then go back to OBJECT, TRANSFORM, MOVE and specify a different direction and hit COPY. You can then hit Command-D/CTRL-D until satisfied.

This probably isn't the best approach for 1000 units but it works well enough for smaller numbers.

If you do step and repeat stuff all of the time in Illustrator, I am sure there are both commercial and freeware plug-ins.

 

[Rick]

I have done it the way described above, but with CADTools (www.hotdoor.com) you can use "step and repeat" in the CadTracker window and it's all done.

 

[wildside]

and in corel you hit step and repeat, enter settings, 1.5 seconds and done
​

 

[technowolf]

ok, thanks guys,
why is it that AI is sometimes a pain in the A**

 

[Letterbox Mike]

I have done it the way described above, but with CADTools (www.hotdoor.com) you can use "step and repeat" in the CadTracker window and it's all done.

Holy crap Rick, I've been using CADTools for years and never noticed it could do that! That's awesome, thank you so much!

BTW, if you don't have CADTools, it's worth the hundred bucks to buy it, it's a great program for the sign business, allows you to very easily make dimensions, notations, cross sections etc., as well as alot of other CAD functions. We have it on all of our design computers and use it daily.

 

[D&Tgraphics]

Effect
Distort & Transform
Transform

Hope that helped

Do what Sign_Boy said. It will do exactly what you want it to do.

 

[FrankenSigns.biz]

I have noticed the lack of step and repeat in Illustrator as well. All of the suggestions above work, but are no doubt the long way round to get in the barn.

If you've ever seen or used Quark's step and repeat, you would find that it is straight-forward and easy to use. Illustrator should have that exact feature. But it doesn't. Illustrator's lack of this feature has forced me at times to render in Quark, export as .eps and open from within Illustrator. This is still easier and less intensive than rendering without leaving Illustrator.

 

[FrankenSigns.biz]

and in corel you hit step and repeat, enter settings, 1.5 seconds and done
​

CorelDraw definitely rocks. I wish they'd bring it back to the Mac.

 

[Rick]

Holy crap Rick, I've been using CADTools for years and never noticed it could do that! That's awesome, thank you so much!

BTW, if you don't have CADTools, it's worth the hundred bucks to buy it, it's a great program for the sign business, allows you to very easily make dimensions, notations, cross sections etc., as well as alot of other CAD functions. We have it on all of our design computers and use it daily.

I love CadTools too, yeah it is a chunk of change but all the options it has, Cadtracker with area and perimeter measurements, and having scale/layer support has been worth it with all the drafting I have to do.

 

[SebastienL]

I saw this post this week and I took a look at the "cadtool" demo for Illustrator. Loved it so much, i bought it the next day. It works great and as all the functions you want and need to produce top notch plans,
Plus, it saves me from the absolute dread of Autocad.

Thank you Rick, Here's to you