Straighten Tool
Straighten is an Astute Graphics tool for Adobe Illustrator that orients a path segment such that its two anchor points lie along either a horizontal or vertical line, and (by default) removes its handles, turning the path segment into a straight line. The segment may be moved perpendicularly to its alignment direction afterwards. Straighten is part of the SubScribe plugin.
Tool Location and Cursor Appearance
The Straighten tool appears in Illustrator’s main toolbar (which must be in Advanced mode: View > Toolbars > Advanced) stacked under the Connect tool and along with the Lock Unlock tool in the SubScribe plugin. As with other stacked tools, click and hold on the top tool icon to display the tools stacked under it.
Straighten Tool Location
The Straighten tool uses several cursors:
Straighten Tool Cursors
Straighten Tool Operation
To use the Straighten tool, simply hover the cursor over a path segment of interest; the tolerance for how close the cursor needs to be from the path is adjustable. The cursor will change to indicate whether the segment will be straightened to a horizontal orientation or a vertical orientation (if the cursor appears without the double arrows, it means the segment has already been straightened).
Straighten Tool Example
The straightened segment will be previewed. The Straighten tool chooses the orientation that is closer to the original, but if the Option/Alt key is held down, the perpendicular orientation can be forced.
Straighten Tool Perpendicular Mode
Clicking will then straighten the path segment and finalize the path. By default, the tool removes a path segment’s handles (thus making the segment straight). However, if the Shift key is pressed, the handles will be retained, and only the segment’s endpoints will be adjusted:
Straighten Tool Retain Handles
After clicking on the path segment (before releasing the mouse button), it may be dragged to reposition it along the axis perpendicular to its alignment orientation:
Straighten Tool Dragging
Straighten Preferences
Doubleclicking the Straighten tool in the toolbox (or pressing the Enter key when the tool is selected) will bring up its preferences dialog:
Straighten Preferences
1. Snap Tolerance
The tolerance for the cursor when snapping to existing paths, in pixels.
2. Ignore Constrain Angle
When enabled, the constrain angle is ignored when straightening the segment (i.e., it will always be parallel to an artboard edge).
3. Informational area
Shows a brief description of each preference control when the cursor is being hovered over it.