Shear

AG Shear is an Astute Graphics live effect that adds the ability to shear art objects, including live text, non-destructively — without resorting to hard-to-edit, multiple-stacked native Transform effects.

As with most live effects, AG Shear appears in the main menu, under Effect > AG Utilities. It can also be applied directly from the Appearance panel using the “Add New Effect” button at the bottom of the panel.

AG Shear Parameters Dialog

After applying the live effect using the menu item (or when clicking on the existing effect in the Appearance panel to edit it), the parameters dialog will appear:

AG Shear Parameters Dialog

1. Shear Angle

The angle of the shear, from –85° to 85°. As with the native Shear tool, positive shear angles slant the artwork to the right (when the axis is set to horizontal) or downwards (when the axis is set to vertical).

2. Axis

The axis along which to shear, either Horizontal or Vertical. Axes of an arbitrary angle, which are rarely used, are not supported. 

AG Shear Examples

3. Orientation

The position of the shear’s transformation point in relation to the artwork’s bounding box.

AG Shear Orientation

4. Prefer Anchor Point Text

When enabled, and the art object is a single point text object, then the shear’s transformation point will always be placed at the anchor point of the text object, regardless of the Orientation setting. This ensures that the baseline of the text passes through the anchor point of the text, as normal.

AG Shear Prefer Point Text Anchor

5. Preview

As with all live effects, when enabled, changing a parameter will immediately update the artwork while the dialog is still open.

6. Help Button

Opens the help documentation in the Astute Manager. If this does not automatically appear, please ensure your Astute Manager is running first.