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This article is from July 25, 2006, and is no longer current.

The change in arrowheads?

Sandee Cohen
3

So I just got finished listening to the latest InDesignSecrets podcast. And all that talk about applying arrowheads to paths (part of this week’s contest) got me looking at the arrowheads closer than I normally do.

Imagine my surprise when I noticed there has been a change in how the arrowheads are aligned to the path. (At least I think this is a change.)

In older versions of InDesign I could have sworn that the arrowhead would extend out beyond the position of the endpoint of the path. But in InDesign CS2 and CS, the arrowhead sits flush to the endpoint of the path.

I don’t have InDesign 2 loaded on my machines (and I can’t find the install disks in the chaos of my apartment), so I can’t tell when this change occured.

All I know is that one of my favorite InDesign resource books (no, not mine) has a screen shot of arrowheads extending out beyond the endpoint of the path. So I’m pretty sure that at some point (yes, a pun!) InDesign changed the behavior of the endpoints and arrowheads.

I’m assuming it was between InDesign 2 and InDesign CS (version 3). But what I can’t believe is that I never noticed the change until today! How many years is that?????

What makes this exciting for me is that it makes it possible to numerically control the length of a line that contains arrowheads.

It also is exciting because Illustrator works the old way. Arrow heads are always applied outside the endpoint of the line.

If anyone has ID 2 installed, could you test this out and let me know?

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Sandee Cohen
Sandee Cohen is a New York City-based instructor and corporate trainer in a wide variety of graphic programs, especially the Adobe products, including InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, and Acrobat. She has been an instructor for New School University, Cooper Union, Pratt, and School of Visual Arts. She is a frequent speaker for various events. She has also been a speaker for Seybold Seminars, Macworld Expo, and PhotoPlus conferences. She is the author of many versions of the Visual Quickstart Guides for InDesign.
  • Branislav Milic says:
    July 25, 2006 at 8:39 am

    Sandee Baby,

    It’s in InDesign CS (1) that this new “behavior” was introduced.

    Reply
  • David Blatner says:
    July 25, 2006 at 12:05 pm

    Interesting! If I noticed this change, I had completely forgotten about it. You’re right, Sandee. I just launched InDesign 2.02 and found that when you added an arrowhead in that version, it actually extended the line farther. Personally, I like the CS and CS2 behavior better because you can draw a line exactly to the spot you want to point at, and then add the arrowhead. In ID2, you might have had to move the endpoint after adding the arrowhead. Good eye, Sandee!

    Reply
  • vectorbabe says:
    July 25, 2006 at 1:22 pm

    Thanks Branislav and David for the confirmation.

    What makes this particularly satisfying is I asked for this change for a long time ago.

    But embarrasingly, I might have asked for it even after they changed the behavior.

    Reply
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