- In this movie, we're going to create these alternating
rows of repeating stars just as they appear
in the blue field of an American flag, using a combination
of the Move dialog box and the Paste In Front command.
We'll go ahead and switch to our documented work here.
And I'm going to turn off the Guides layer because
we don't really need it anymore, and it's just sort of
obstructing our view.
And then, I'm going to change the color of the star
by clicking on the first swatch up here in the control panel
and selecting this shade of blue.
Again, it will be available to you by virtue of the fact
that you created a basic RGB file,
and it's R:41 G:171 B:226.
And it looks a little bit something like that.
Now, what I'm going to do is switch back
to the black arrow tool, which, of course,
you can get by pressing the V key.
And I'll press the Enter key or the Return key on the Mac
to bring up the Move dialog box.
And it looks like we have some pretty wacky values.
So, I'm going to start things off by setting everything
to zero.
I've got the Preview check box on.
I know I want to move the star to the left,
so I'm going to go ahead and click in the horizontal value
and press Shift Down Arrow in order to scoot it
downward like so.
So, when I say Shift Down Arrow, I'm pressing that key combo
several times in a row until I just barely get the star
outside of the magnifying glass area, which occurs
at a horizontal value of -360 points, at which point
I'll click the Copy button, or you can press Alt Enter
or Option Return on the Mac.
And I didn't notice, but we have a black stroke
which I don't want, so I'll go ahead and Shift-click
on that first star so that they're both selected.
And, now, I'll go up to the second swatch up here
in the control panel.
I'll click on it, and I'll change that swatch to None
to get rid of the stroke.
All right, now, I'm going to click off the stars
to deselect them, and I'll click on this star right here
to reselect it.
And I'm going to make a copy that's -360 points away
by pressing Control D or Command D on the Mac,
the D being for duplicate.
All right, now, we need to create another star to the right,
so go ahead and click on this first star,
the one inside the magnifying glass,
and press the Enter key or the Return key on the Mac
to bring up the Move dialog box.
Because Illustrator always repeats the last move,
we're seeing the star move to this location right here.
What we want is the opposite effect, so I'll go ahead
and get rid of that minus sign and then press the Tab key.
And, now, we're seeing a star over here to the right
of the magnifying glass, which is exactly what we want.
So, go ahead and click on the Copy button or, again,
press Alt Enter or Option Return.
All right.
Now, let's zoom out so that we can see more of our artwork.
Now, what we need to do is repeat three of the stars.
We don't need four of them.
I just know this from experience here.
And, so, go ahead and select these stars right there.
Don't click on that center point because you'll select
the circles instead.
Just go ahead and click on a star, and then Shift-click
on this one, and Shift-click on this one.
So, these three stars should be selected.
And what we need to do is alternate them,
move them down into the right, effectively.
The question becomes: how far?
If you press the Enter key or the Return key on the Mac,
we're going to repeat the last move, so that's why
we're seeing the star move over to this right-hand area.
What we really want to do is move it half that distance.
So, go ahead and click after the horizontal value
and enter "/2" in order to move the stars
just 180 points.
And then, we need to set the vertical value
to 300 points or something to move them down.
I don't know.
And that's because, unfortunately, we can't see
the original stars at the same time, which prevents us
from making a very good decision.
So, what I'm going to recommend you do is just cancel
out of here.
And instead of copying these stars on the fly,
let's copy them and paste them in front
so that they stay there as we preview our next move.
And to make that happen, go to the Edit menu
and choose the Copy command,
and then return to the Edit menu and choose Paste in Front.
Again, that's Control C, Control F here on the PC,
Command C, Command F on the Mac.
It doesn't look like anything has happened, but, of course,
we do have new stars right on top of the old ones.
All right, I'll go ahead and press Control Z or Command Z
on the Mac to undo that move.
And I will once again press the Enter key or the Return key
on the Mac to bring up the Move dialog box.
I'm going to move it over to the right-hand side
to get it out of the way, and then I'll click after
the horizontal value and enter "/2"
and you can now see our alternating stars.
They look great, but of course they do need
to move down.
So, click in the vertical value and press Shift Up Arrow
a bunch of times in order to move those starts downward.
And at about 260 points, I think everything
reconciles nicely.
And what I'm looking for is basically equal space
between all of the stars in both rows.
All right.
So, having that, I'll go ahead and click Okay in order
to accept that change.
All right.
Now, I need to move these same stars upward to form
a top column, so I will this time press the Enter key
or the Return key on the Mac to bring up
the Move dialog box.
Change the horizontal value to zero.
And you're going to change the vertical value
not only to -260 points, but you want to multiply that value
times two.
So, click after -260 points and enter "*2" like so,
and that will change the vertical value to -520 points,
which produces this effect right here,
which is exactly what we want.
So, go ahead and click on that Copy button in order to copy
those stars.
And then, finally, go ahead and click and Shift-click
on all the stars in this middle row, press the Enter key
or the Return key on the Mac in order to bring up
the Move dialog box.
You can just barely see their points way up there at the top
of the screen, and that's because the vertical value
is negative.
It should be positive this time around.
520 is just fine though, in which case we end up
with this row of stars down here.
Only the top points can be seen, but it's still important
we do it, and that's why I want you to click the Copy button
in order to create a copy of those stars like so.
And now, I'm going to click off the stars to deselect them,
and I'll press Control 0 or Command 0 on the Mac
in order to fit the document onscreen.
And that's how you repeat the stars and alternating
equally spaced rows using a combination
of the Move dialog box and the Paste in Front command
here inside Illustrator.