Comments on: InDesignSecrets Podcast 026

By: Branislav Milic

Branislav Milic — Fri, 28 Jul 2006 15:20:20 +0000

Anne-Marie, most of the arrows around graphs and illustrations are straight so Alexandra trick is perfect. I think.

By: Anne-Marie

Anne-Marie — Fri, 28 Jul 2006 13:08:23 +0000

Flip Horizontal doesn’t work with lines on an angle (which most of my arrows are). Rotate 180 doesn’t worked with curved lines (which many of my more artsy arrows are). My feeling is, why bother with either when Reverse Path works every time?

They should have a “Swap Position” button in the Strokes palette by the Start/End dropdowns, in my opinion.

By: Alexandra Lemos

Alexandra Lemos — Thu, 27 Jul 2006 17:33:31 +0000

Rotation only works with straight lines, but Flip Horizontal does work with curved lines and all…

Of course, if the path is not symmetrical, the result won’t be perfect…

By: Branislav Milic

Branislav Milic — Thu, 27 Jul 2006 11:46:39 +0000

Oh my… !!!!!

Did Alexandra just found THE trick ? Just Rotate 180° !!!

Of course this will work only on straight lines but that’s even easier !

You can even assign a short : Palettes’ menus > Transformation > Rotation 180°

By: Alexandra Lemos

Alexandra Lemos — Thu, 27 Jul 2006 08:48:01 +0000

Or you could just flip it horizontally…

By: Adam Hay

Adam Hay — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 22:07:14 +0000

Oh yeah, here was my method:

Select the arrow line segment with the selection tool. Make sure that the Reference Point is in the center, and rotate the object 180 degrees. Only problem here is that the line segment must be straight. If it is a line curving up, this method will result in the line curving down.

By: Adam Hay

Adam Hay — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 22:01:59 +0000

I understand about the time thing as I use WordPress also, but the point is that even someone on the east coast might have a shot at it before I would, unless I get up in the middle of the night!

Might I suggest a drawing? There are usually at least a handful of people who get the question correct, right? Why not throw those names in a hat and pick one? That’s what I do on my podcast, Rookie Designer (http://rookiedesigner.com) *truely shamless plug*. Would probably be safer than the dart idea too!

By: Dave Saunders

Dave Saunders — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 21:57:03 +0000

Of course, for my trick to work, you had to remember to make the first object style at the beginning of the job.

By: Dave Saunders

Dave Saunders — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 21:55:51 +0000

A way to solve the original problem (get those arrowheads to the other end) without reversing the path would be to start out by making the arrow settings part of an object style.

Then make another object style with the arrows the other way around.

Now delete the first object style and replace with the second.

Dave

By: Branislav Milic

Branislav Milic — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 09:24:30 +0000

Why don’t you simply insert a visual countdown ? With JavaScript or Flash I think ready made exist on the Internet.