- [Instructor] In this movie I'll show you how to use
the rectangle tool.
And we're going to use that tool to create every
element of the handle of this magnified glass.
But we're not going to draw the handle at an angle
because that would be hard.
It's much easier to draw your shapes perpendicularly
and then to rotate them into place when you're done.
Alright so I'll go ahead and switch over to
my document in progress here
and I'll press ctrl + 0, or cmd + 0 on the Mac
to zoom out.
Now you can select the rectangle tool
from the floating toolbar if you like.
Or you can click and hold on the ellipse tool
and then select the rectangle tool from the fly-out menu.
Alright so obviously you can draw
a rectangle from one corner to another.
If you have smart guides turned on
then you get a heads up display that's showing you
the width and height of your shape as you draw it.
Another option is to draw a square
and you do that while you're dragging by pressing
and holding the shift key,
and note that you'll only get a square as long
as that key is down.
If you release the shift key then you'll go back
to drawing a rectangle.
So if you want to square, be sure to keep
that shift key down to the bitter end.
And then finally I'll go ahead and press the backspace key
or the delete key on a Mac to get rid of that shape.
You can create a rectangle from the center out
by pressing and holding the alt or option key.
And again you've got to keep that key down the entire time.
And as long as I'm demonstrating this,
I'm going to create a shape that's exactly 460 points wide
by 64 points tall.
Which ends up giving me this shape right here.
Alright now I want to move it into a better location.
So I'm going to press and hold the ctrl key,
or the cmd key on a Mac to temporarily get
my last used arrow tool
which happens to be the black arrow.
And now I'll drag this center point
until I snap into alignment with that guide.
But it's not going so well there.
And so what I'm going to need to do
is drag this edge while pressing the shift key
until I snap into alignment like so.
Alright so you can also use the spacebar
to reposition a shape as you draw it.
And so I'm going to drag from the intersection of those two
center guides and press and hold the alt key
or the option key on the Mac in order to draw
the shape from the center outward.
And this time I want it to be 102 points wide
by 40 points tall like so.
But I also want it to be left aligned with
the right side of the previous rectangle.
So I'll go ahead and press the spacebar as I drag.
And this is not working, I'm snapping into alignment
with the magnified glass instead.
Which is not what I want.
So I'll just go ahead and accept the shape
that I have so far,
knowing of course that I have it scaled correctly.
And then I'll go ahead and zoom in
and press the ctrl key or the cmd key on the Mac
and drag that left edge while pressing the shift key
until it snaps into alignment with the right side
of that first rectangle.
Alright now let's say you want to create a rectangle
by the numbers and you don't want to have to be
so careful as you drag.
Then just go ahead click to bring up the rectangle
dialog box and now I'll change
the width value to eight points
and I'll change the height to 48 like so.
And you want to make sure of course
that your link icon is turned off.
And then click okay in order to create that new shape.
If you want to center align the shape at this guideline
for example then press the alt key or the option key
on the Mac and click in order to bring up
the rectangle dialog box and then click okay
to accept those values.
And we'll end up with this effect here.
Alright now I'm going to go ahead and switch back
to the arrow tool
by pressing the V key is the easiest way to work.
And I need to move these last two shapes
into their proper locations.
But first I want to send all of the rectangles
behind the circles and so I'm going to marquee
these four shapes and you only need
to partially marquee them like so.
And then right click inside the document window,
choose arrange, and choose send to back.
Alright now I'm going to click off the shapes to deselect them
and I'm going to click on the center point for this guy
right here and drag it over to the right
while pressing the shift key until I snap into alignment
with the left side of that outer circle.
And then I'll press the left arrow key twice in a row
in order to nudge that shape to points to the left.
Alright now I'll grab this guy and he needs to come down
to this location right there where these
two guidelines intersect.
And then I'll press the right arrow key a couple of times
in order to correctly position this shape.
Now shapes are stacked in the order that you draw them
and so this guy who was the second to last
shape I drew is in front of the very first rectangle.
And so what I need to do is bring this guy to front.
And you can right click and then choose arrange,
and choose bring to front if you want to.
Or if you want to precisely stack
one shape in front of another,
then go up to the edit menu and choose the cut command.
Or you have that universal keyboard shortcut
of ctrl + x or cmd + x on a Mac
and then select the shape in front of which
you want to put that big first rectangle
and then go up to the edit menu and choose
paste in front or you have that keyboard shortcut
of ctrl + f or cmd + f on a Mac.
And finally I want this handle to be black.
So I'll click on this first color swatch
up here in the far left side of the control panel
and I'll select black.
After which point I'll press the enter key
or the return key on the Mac to hide that panel
and I'll press ctrl + 0 or cmd + 0 on a Mac to zoom out.
And that is how you draw a very practical
and precise collection of rectangles
here inside Illustrator.