Operation Manual

Working with lines, outlines, and brushstrokes | 143
Different corner styles were applied to the upper and lower row of triangles. Different line caps were
applied to the lines in the upper-right corner. Arrowheads were applied to the lines in the lower-right corner.
The program also lets you copy the color of an outline to other objects and convert outlines to objects so that you can fill them. For more
information about filling objects, see “Filling objects” on page 301.
You can choose a corner style to control the corner shape in lines and choose a line cap style to change the appearance of a line’s endpoints.
You can set the miter limit to determine the corner shape in objects containing lines that meet at sharp angles. Corners with angles above
the miter limit are pointed (mitered); corners with angles below the miter limit are beveled (squared off).
In addition, you can specify the position of the outline by placing it outside or inside the object, or centering it so that it overlaps equally the
outside and the inside of an object. The effect of outline position options are more obvious with thick outlines.
Line styles
You can choose from a variety of line styles. Line styles are organized into two categories: standard and enhanced.
Standard line styles consist exclusively of dashes and spaces. The dashes and spaces vary to create different patterns. You can use a preset
pattern or create a custom pattern. Each line style pattern is defined by units. There are fifty units — each of which can be “on” (filled in) or
“off” (blank) to define a pattern that contains a maximum of ten dashes or spaces. You can also set the pattern length. When you increase
or decrease the pattern length, the dashes and spaces appear longer or shorter because you are changing the size of the units to fit the
specified pattern length. The line width is not affected if you change the pattern length.
In the Edit line style dialog box, each box represents a unit that can be filled in to create a dash, or left blank
to create a space. You can move the white slider to the right to increase the number of units in your pattern.
Enhanced line styles consist of shapes, zigzags, or multiple lines to create diverse patterns. You can edit an enhanced line style by changing
the width of the lines or the width of the overall pattern.
When you apply an enhanced line style to a filled object, the fill is contained within the path of the object, not the outline. For example, if
you have an object with a zigzag line style, the fill does not extend into the points of the zigzag.