need a little help with drawing shapes

[kjphilips webforumsuser@macromedia.com]

I am trying to draw shapes that are ver geometric useing lines arcs and circles unfortunatly i am an old AutoCadd operator and i am finding this to be very dificult useing the tools provided with the mx studio. Is there a way to import from AutoCadd 2000 or am i going to have to use the tools provided?
I have tried the import of the .dxf file and it gets strange. I cant realy do anything with it. I want to have pages that are not square andd rather shaped. so any help for this beginer would be great. thanx

[Pappy]

KJ,

It was a little difficult for me to exactly understand what you are trying to do and it doesnt sound as if you have a lot of experience with creating a book, so...I dont really have a good starting point here. Here goes...................

You will find that the people in this forum do illustration from the most basic of forms (geometric and whatall) to the most incredible rendered artwork that there can be and still be in vectors. Freehand is certainly capable and easily able to draw the basic geometric shapes you need.

Click on the rectangle tool in your main toolbox and hold the button down. Another tool will pop up (the polygon tool) select it. Then double click on the polygon tool and you will be able change the shape of the polygon you are going to draw by changing the number of sides in that dialog box. Once you have the correct number of sides written in, click ok and begin drawing your shape by click/dragging. If you want to make freeform shapes, try using the pen tool or the freehand tool. The pen tool will take some time for you to become familiar with how it works but it can provide an easy way to draw both geometric and organic forms.

In reality though, If you are completely unfamiliar with Freehand this is going to be a frustrating experience. I would recommend you take time for a tutorial and time for you to become familiar with Freehand so that you recognize that you have a huge toolset and know how to use it to accomplish the task required.

As far as shaped pages goes, you will have to start with rectangular pages. You can of course set custom page sizes and bleeds for whatever size you need (talk to your printer). If this book is going to be printed offset then shaped pages will have to be die cut out of sheets of paper and you will have to provide die shapes to them on the pages in the file. We usually make a die layer and our die is in a spot color called "die"(imagine that) so that the printer can easily separate it for proofing and use it for their cad systems to construct our dies.

I know these seem like very cursory instructions, but your questions are so open ended (how do I use the tools in Freehand?) that I would have to write a chapter in a book to answer that. Perhaps after you take a tutorial and gain a better overview of the toolset, I could be of more assistance.

Good luck.

Pappy

[John J Nosal]

KJ,

You might take a look at the following tutorial for a good start to understanding how to use the Pen tool in FreeHand.

[url]http://www.macromedia.com/support/freehand/vectors/using_pen_tool/[/url]

Regards,
John J Nosal
Product Team Liaison - FreeHand
Macromedia Technical Support