Hold the shift key down when pulling the handles to ensure it's horizontal.

What bounding box?

Nick Cooke

That's exactly the problem, Nick. I attached the image to illustrate what I meant, but I had to set the extra point by hand which is why it's not entirely straight. The first curve is the one I have & the second one is what I'd like to achieve. The bounding box is the box that "holds" your selection.

You've tried the Add Anchor Points selection in the Object>Path menu? That seems like it might distribute points the way you are looking to do.

I don't really know of any other way.

When adding anchor points, those are added right in the middle of 2 points & not necessarely at the outer points.

The only way I've noticed Illustrator adding anchor points automatically is if you trim or divide an object with the pathfinder tool.

The way I'd do it manually would be: define the bounding box with guides (this will give you your touching edges), then from the tool palette select the add anchor pen tool (pen with the plus sign). You can add an anchor point anywhere on a path (not just centered between the 2 closest points) and as many as you want.

If you put a guide exactly where you want it, and have smart guides turned on, it should find the intersection of the path and the guide and the you can click to add. But, FWIW, sounds like you might not find a perfect solution.

There is an Illustrator PlugIn that may be just the thing: BetterHandles (for Mac and Win) from NineBlock Software

www.nineblock.com

I havent tried it yet, though ; )

I usually use the pathfinder for adding points where necessary as well, but it doens't always work... Even when you copy/paste the exact x- & y-coordinates, sometimes the pathfinder won't "cut" the shapes. Very frustrating when even computers turn out to be not entirely flawless ;-)

Does anyone know how to make Illustrator add anchor point correctly at the intersection of two straight lines without doing it manually? Tnx

how to make Illustrator add anchor point correctly at the intersection of two straight lines without doing it manually?

Select the 2 lines, go to Object>Path>Add Anchor Points

EDIT: Sorry that's wrong. Doing that adds a new anchor points between all existing anchor points.

Illsans,

Why do you want to add the points there anyway?

ChrisL

There isn't much AUTOMATIC help when it comes to individual line segments. If the lines were a shape then you could use various pathfinder tools.

For the time being, Manually is your only option. Add an anchor point to a line segment that isn't a closed shape with the Add Anchor Pen Tool.

I honestly can't remember why I posted this question here, Chris, but I do remember that it would've come in handy at the thing I was working on at the time. Still, it seems odd to me that there's no way of doing this in Illustrator & I can still see how it can be usefull in many cases.

If you have FontLab, paste into a glyph window, choose Optimize from the Outline menu, then paste back to AI.
ChrisL

Tnx for help but, after setting new anchor point manually at the crossing of two straight lines I have to cut off one side of the lines and make the lines join at the intersection which means that if I want a nice corner join I should have ending points of each line (after cutting) exactly one above the other (or at the same spot) and that's something I simply can't do by hand (the lines ofcourse must not be moved during the process). Any other suggestions?

Well, you can try this. Makes sure your lines have a stroke on them, select them all and then go to the Pathfinder palette, select Crop. The stroke will reset to None but you'll now have 4 individual lines instead of the 2 intersecting. Also, this will make them a temporary group, just un-group them before you delete the lines you want to remove.

Then you can use the direct select (white arrow) to select the two end points you want to rejoin, and press Ctrl+J or Cmd+J on a MAC.

If this isn't what you're looking for, then I'm not sure I understand what you're asking to do. That is about as Automatic as it's going to get in Illustrator.

Thanks for trying to help me, but after cropping I didn't get 4 individual lines (that would be great) but only one, that is the first one I draw with a pen tool (the other one just disappeared).
I must be doing something wrong :) Thanks anyway

Sorry, I meant Outline, it's right next to Crop.

YES! Outline was great help, just what I needed, thanks a lot!!!

sweet, glad I could help.