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Rotate objects or shapes or create a series of shapes on a circular path.

Quick reference

Rotating Objects

Rotate objects or shapes or create a series of shapes on a circular path.

When to use

The Rotate Tool can be used any time you wanted to quickly rotate an object or rotate objects around an axis such as a circle.

Instructions

  • Begin by opening the Rotating Objects - Exercise.ai file
  • Select your text with the Selection Tool (V) and then grab the Rotate Tool from the toolbar.
  • Notice that once you've selected the tool, a small red crosshair appears on the baseline of your text.
  • With your Rotate Tool selected, rotate your text and notice how the point of origin is on the left side where your crosshair is located.
  • Click on the small red crosshair and move it to the center of your text and now try to rotate your type again.
  • This time, your text should be rotating around the center where the crosshair is located.
  • Do the same thing after placing the crosshair to the right.
  • Grab your Ellipse Tool (L) and hold down the Shift Key to create a circle and fill it with solid black.
  • Grab your Rectangle Tool (M) and create a tall, narrow rectangle roughly above your circle and also fill this shape with black.
  • Switch back to your Selection Tool and click and drag around both shapes so that they are selected simultaneously.
  • Find the 'Align' option from the top toolbar, or by going to the Window Menu and choosing the Align option.
  • Click on the second icon in the top row that says 'Horizontal Align Center'.
  • Now both of your shapes should be centered.
  • Select them both once again using your Selection Tool and then press 'R' on the keyboard to return to the Rotate Tool.
  • Next we want to move the red crosshair to the center of the circle shape.
  • Once the anchor point has been placed in the center of the circle, hold down the Alt/Option key and click twice on the anchor.
  • You should now be prompted with a dialog box that allows you to enter a value for the angle.
  • Enter a value of 20 degrees and then click on the button that says 'Copy' from inside of the dialog box.
  • You should now have your original rectangle, plus one new copy that has been rotated 20 degrees.
  • Now press Command/Ctrl+D on the keyboard to duplicate this rotation until your shapes rotate all the way around the circle. 

Hints

  • The keyboard shortcut for the Scale Tool is 'R' on the keyboard.
  • Using the Rotate Tool can be very useful for creating things like bursts, fireworks, or sun rays in Illustrator.
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  • 00:04 Just next to our skill tool,
  • 00:06 we also have another object based tool called the rotate tool.
  • 00:10 And just like before, I was saying that there's more than one way to do something
  • 00:13 in Illustrator, and more than one way to skin a cat.
  • 00:16 So obviously, we can rotate a shape just by hovering over the corner or
  • 00:20 by grabbing our free transform tool, and using the rotate option like before.
  • 00:24 But the rotate tool actually has a few added features that we can't get it from
  • 00:28 the other options.
  • 00:30 So the first thing that I would point out here is that when you select the rotate
  • 00:33 tool, you'll notice that there's these little red crosshair
  • 00:36 on the left side of our text.
  • 00:39 And I can actually move this and drag this around.
  • 00:42 And as I do that, that's going to be the access or
  • 00:45 the center point at which everything moves and rotates around.
  • 00:49 So if I back up for a second and
  • 00:51 then move this anchor point all the way at the right, you'll see that our text is now
  • 00:55 rotating around that anchor point on the right side.
  • 00:59 As opposed to before, when it's in the center, or
  • 01:01 when it's all the way to the left.
  • 01:03 So this tool actually allows you to have more control over the axis and
  • 01:07 the direction that you want this to be rotating from.
  • 01:10 Well one of the other really cool features about this is that I have the ability to
  • 01:16 rotate shapes around an object.
  • 01:18 So let me show you what I mean.
  • 01:20 If I just press L to get my ellipse tool, and hold down the Shift key to drag out
  • 01:23 a perfect circle, and then press M to get the rectangle.
  • 01:27 I'm just gonna create kind of a long rectangle like that.
  • 01:32 And I wanna make sure that these are aligned center.
  • 01:35 So I'm gonna select both of these shapes,
  • 01:37 and then come up here to the toolbar where it says Align.
  • 01:41 Or I can come up to the window menu and choose Align from here.
  • 01:43 And that's just going to bring up my Align panel.
  • 01:47 Now with both of these selected,
  • 01:49 I'm gonna select the second option here that says horizontal align center.
  • 01:52 And that's just gonna make sure that these things are lined up.
  • 01:55 And I can close that, and now what I'm gonna do is grab my selection tool
  • 01:59 just by pressing V on the keyboard and selecting both of these shapes.
  • 02:03 Then I'll come back to my rotate tool, and notice where the anchor point is now.
  • 02:08 Now, this anchor point is kind of at the top of the circle.
  • 02:11 So, when I rotate this, it's rotating both of the shapes.
  • 02:15 Actually when I move the anchor point down so that it's in the center of my shape.
  • 02:21 So, to do that, I'm just gonna drag it down.
  • 02:24 And now I can enter a value here of let's say 15 degrees or even 20 degrees.
  • 02:32 And it's showing me what that looks like when it's rotated here.
  • 02:35 But if I wanted to create multiple copies of this,
  • 02:37 I have this option here just called Copy.
  • 02:39 And if I click that it's gonna make one copy.
  • 02:43 Let´s say I wanted to continue to repeat my most recent transformation.
  • 02:47 Well, the easy way to do that is just by pressing Cmd or Ctrl+D on the keyboard.
  • 02:53 You could see that as I do that,
  • 02:54 it´s now creating multiple copies of my recent transformation until I´ve created,
  • 03:01 basically, a 360 degree rotation for that shape.
  • 03:06 So that's a really cool way to use the rotate tool in order to create
  • 03:09 something like a sun or a burst, or
  • 03:11 any kind of shape that you want to be rotated around an object.
  • 03:16 So as you can see the rotate tool is great not only for
  • 03:20 rotating text based on an axis point.
  • 03:23 But also for creating shapes like this that can be used in any kind of logo or
  • 03:26 illustration in Adobe Illustrator.

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