Drawing Freeform Paths; Drawing With The Pencil Tool; Drawing With The Variable Stroke Pen Tool - MACROMEDIA FREEHAND MX 11 Use Manual

Drawing freeform paths

With the Pencil, Variable Stroke Pen, and Calligraphic Pen tools, you can draw freeform paths
that follow the direction of your hand movements.

Drawing with the Pencil tool

The Pencil tool draws a simple line as you drag.
To set Pencil tool options:
In the Tools panel, if the Pencil tool is not showing, select it from its pop-up menu.
1
Double-click the Pencil tool.
2
In the Pencil Tool dialog box, select tool options:
3
•
Enter a value from 1 to 10 in the Precision text box, or adjust the slider. Choose a high value
to follow minor variations as you draw. Choose a low value to smooth minor variations as
you draw.
•
Select Draw Dotted Line to draw paths faster by displaying a dotted line as you draw. The final
path is still solid.
Click OK.
4
Use the stroke and fill color selectors in the Tools panel to set color attributes for the path.
5
To draw a path with the Pencil tool:
In the Tools panel, select the Pencil tool from its pop-up menu.
1
Drag to draw a path. To draw a straight line, hold down Alt (Windows) or Option
2
(Macintosh) as you drag.
To continue a selected path with the Pencil tool:
Position the Pencil tool over a path's end point; a solid plus (+) sign indicates that drawing will
continue the path.

Drawing with the Variable Stroke Pen tool

The Variable Stroke Pen tool draws a path that resembles a brush stroke. You can use keyboard
commands or a pressure-sensitive tablet to vary the width of the path as you draw.
To set Variable Stroke Pen tool options:
In the Tools panel, if the Variable Stroke Pen tool is not showing, select it from its
1
pop-up menu.
Double-click the Variable Stroke Pen tool.
2
In the Variable Stroke Pen dialog box, select tool options:
3
•
Enter a value from 1 to 10 in the Precision text box, or adjust the slider. Choose a high value
to follow minor variations as you draw. Choose a low value to smooth minor variations as
you draw.
•
Select Draw Dotted Line to draw paths faster by displaying a dotted line as you draw. The final
path is still solid.
Drawing 81