11 Replies Latest reply: Jul 14, 2009 9:30 AM by [scott] RSS

    Changing Alignment & keeping position

    watsonlance Community Member

      Situation:

      I have a line of text that is Left Justified & I need to make it Centered / Right Justified. However when i select the text and hit the align center it centers the text but moves the whole line 3 inches to the left. Up to now i have been copying & pasting the X-axis, but there has to be a better way!

       

      Problem:

      I need the text to stay in the exact same position when I change the alignment, without having to re-position everything.

       

       

       

       

       

       

       

       

      Thanks in advance everyone

      Lance

        • 1. Re: Changing Alignment & keeping position
          Mylenium CommunityMVP

          Sounds like something a script could do, though I'm not sure if line text objects return a usable bounding box... But I'm not into AI scripting, so I can#t offer anything more specific...

           

          Mylenium

          • 2. Re: Changing Alignment & keeping position
            Wade_Zimmerman Community Member

            Can you use it as area text instead?

             

            if so then make a text frame type your text and if need be resize the text frame and choose center.

             

            But I am curious if you only have one line of text what does it matter as far as its justification?

            • 3. Re: Changing Alignment & keeping position
              watsonlance Community Member

              No it has to be the line text, starting at a certain point (based on the design). The reason I need this is because we are creating a fully automated web2print system and the online coding needs to source to my layer and auto input the content. However for this to work with my design I need the text to start at a specific point. Now as for doing this from the start it would have been wise, but this was an after thought and we already have thousands of pre-built files that need adjusting. So the moving aspect as small as it is, is quite a massive job once you consider the quantity. Also I had to brake up text boxes with the "flatten transparency" feature and that defaults all text lines to left alignment.

               

              Note: don't ask how the web2print works since i am just designing the files how our programing team tells me they are needed.

               

              I have a feeling this is just a setting i am missing since i don't see any reason the text should shift in the first place.

              • 4. Re: Changing Alignment & keeping position
                [scott] CommunityMVP

                As far as I'm aware it's not a setting anywhere. Point text always aligns to the point the cursor was clicked on the artboard. So the point never moves, the text moves based on alignment. You can't make the point move rather than the text.

                • 5. Re: Changing Alignment & keeping position
                  watsonlance Community Member

                  Not the answer I was hoping for but at least it makes sense of it all. That would explain the jumping left and right depending on the alignment. Well if anyone knows how to bypass this please let me know, but at least now it all makes sense (going a little less crazy now i know why i can't do what i want to).

                   

                  Thanks ScottWeichert

                  • 6. Re: Changing Alignment & keeping position
                    Doug Katz Community Member

                    And why can't you use area text exactly? It sounds like that's what you need. Might even be more functional than point text for your design. Unless the input will be SO variable in length or depth that you can't make a box large enough(?) But wouldn't that make point text as unweildy if not more so?

                    • 7. Re: Changing Alignment & keeping position
                      Wade_Zimmerman Community Member

                      The only instance i know that you have to have the point type would be 

                      if you added a fill and converted that fill to a shape such as 

                      rectangle and you need to alter the text from time to time and

                      the length of the rectangle of course had to resize accordingly, say 

                      for a button on a web page, area type would not give you that 

                      expansion unless you resize the text frame with the selection tool.

                       

                      So if you were making buttons for a web site I understand it and there 

                      maybe other instances but I must admit i find it hard to think of one. 

                      But that just might be me.

                      • 8. Re: Changing Alignment & keeping position
                        watsonlance Community Member

                        Ok a bit of confusion going on, my fault for not explaining the situation further.

                         

                        Original: we have many stationary designs made in illustrator eps where for personalizing our clients submit the information they require and our press man inputs the text into our designs. In this case we had text boxes with multi lines of text, with all the spacing and alignment already setup.

                         

                        Now: with our new website we are making it so the client can input his/her information online in a setup text box and hit submit. once submitted the program will open our illustrator file and exchange the default text with the custom text of our client, without anyone on our end touching it. In order for this to work we need to break the text box into individual elements and label each element the same (ie. line01, line02, line03, line04). So to do this i broke up the text boxes using the Object -> flatten transparency. This created the point lines all left aligned, and allowed me to label each element line so the web program can read it.

                         

                        Only Problem: when the design called for a centered text I needed to change the "now left aligned" text line into can center alignment (and re-center of course), so that the text is centered and not left aligned. This is as simple as copying the x-axis # and clicking center then pasting the x-axis back in.

                         

                        What I am looking for:  an easy way to do the above so i can skip the moving of the point lines.

                         

                        Confusion: I had no choice in choosing text boxes, since the flattening converted all the lines to point lines with left alignment.

                         

                        --------------------------------------------

                        I hope this makes more sense. if you need an example try the following:

                         

                        • new file

                        • new text box with center alignment on, type

                        "this

                        is

                        a

                        test"

                        • select text box

                        • go Object -> flatten transparency -> uncheck all options -> hit OK

                        • now ungroup the selection

                        ~ you now have 4 lines of text all left aligned but still centered visually ~

                        • now change the first line to say "testing this"

                        ~ at this point you see my problem ~

                        to fix this click center alignment and then recenter above the other text

                        • step and repeat for all 4 lines

                         

                        I want to skip the red step

                        ---------------------------------------------

                        • 9. Re: Changing Alignment & keeping position
                          [scott] CommunityMVP

                          What about aligning to a key object?

                           

                          To use a key object, select all objects to be aligned, then click again on one of the selected objects (just click with a selection tool, no shift key or anything). It will basically get a thicker highlight to let you know it's the key object. Then clicking align buttons will align the other object to the key object without moving the key object.

                           

                           

                          If there is some other common element that is center aligned on the artboard, you could use that as a key object to realign all the text lines.

                           

                          I'm not certain if this would be any easier in your workflow though.

                          • 10. Re: Changing Alignment & keeping position
                            watsonlance Community Member

                            YES!

                             

                            This will work for what I need. Thanks, I knew there had to be an easier way of doing things.

                             

                            Thanks Scott

                            • 11. Re: Changing Alignment & keeping position
                              [scott] CommunityMVP

                              Glad I was able to find soemthing that helped