Method 5
Right click on the page and select Page Options…. In the General tabbed section, set the Angle of Contraint to 15 (this determines the number of degrees a selection will rotate when the Ctrl key is held held down. Press Apply to apply this change. (Remember to set it back to your preffered angle after this tutorial).
Select the Straight Line Tool. Draw a horizontal line about 90 pixels wide. Add some guidelines. Center the line over the vertical guide.
Click twice to enable rotate/skew mode. Drag the Center of Rotation bulls eye straight down about 200 pixels. The Center of Rotation sets the point around which a selected object rotates.
Now comes the fun part! Select the horizontal line, make sure the Center of Rotation is still below the line. It should centered directly under the line as shown above.
Hold down the Ctrl key, drag the lower right rotation handle (the two sided arrow) holding down the RIGHT mouse button. Every time the line clicks into place (every 6 degrees), release the RIGHT mouse button to drop a rotated duplicate line.
Repeat this step until you have come full circle, as it were, back to and overlapping your original line.
Drag a selection rectangle around all of the lines with the Selector Tool (the arrow pointer). From the Arrange menu, select Combine Shapes > Add Shapes or press Ctrl 1.
Apply a fill color by clicking any of the colors on the screen palette
From the Arrange menu, select Break Shapes. Select the black lines shape and delete it. You should end up with something resembling a circle.
Marquee select all the control points with the Shape Tool and click the Make Curve icon or press C on your keyboard. And voila! A circle.
OK, you say. What’s your point Gary?
My point is simply this. Don’t always look for the obvious solution. There are many more ways than one to skin a cat, as they say (but don’t say it too loudly, you’ll upset Chloe and Sophie!)
I’m sure if you give the matter some thought, you can come up with a few other methods as well. I’m keen to see your solutions. Be creative.
Gary W. Priester
Host of the Xara Xone
and Guest Tutor for December 2011
Download this tutorial: Guest-Tutorial-101-Dec-2011
