Expert: Kevin Stohlmeyer - 8/11/2009

Question
Dear Kevin,

I am an intermediate user of Adobe Illustrator CS2, and am currently working on some technical drawings in which I need to point to a particular area of the drawing with an arrow (normal pointy arrow begining) and ending at a label that has a number (rectangle with a number in it ... 1,2,3, ...): A bit like the drawings you may see in a text book which label various areas with numbered labels, with a key at the bottom, etc.

here are the main issues:

1. Now to do this manually in Adobe Illustrator is straight forward, however I am having problems with the stylize tool for arrowheads; when I apply this style to the entire layer - so that when I make a line it automatically applies the arrowhead - the arrowheads disappear when I export the image into MS Word or MS PowerPoint.

2. Is there a simpler method in which I can generate arrows around the diagram and have Illustrator label them sequentially(?)

Thank you very much for your time and effort.

regards,

Jay

Answer
Hi Jay,


After you create the arrowheads using Effects>Stylize>Add Arrowheads, be sure to go to Object>Expand Appearance if you plan to do anything else to them. This will turn the effect into actual vector shapes and allow you to export or change the look.

There is no automatic way to do this besides creating a script to run after you draw the line. There is also no way besides you entering information manually to label arrows. Illustrator while very powerful, is not a full technical illustration program like AutoCAD.


Thanks

Kevin