Adobe InDesign CS3 - Manual (Page 321)

INDESIGN CS3
User Guide
314
Smooth out paths
Use the Smooth tool to remove excess angles from an existing path or a section of a path. The Smooth tool retains
the original shape of the path as nearly as possible. Smoothed paths generally have fewer points, which can make
them easier to edit, display, and print.
Path before and after using Smooth tool
1 Select the path.
2 Select the Smooth tool.
Note: If the Pencil tool is selected, hold down Alt (Windows) or Option (Mac OS) to temporarily change the Pencil to the
Smooth tool.
3 Drag the tool along the length of the path segment you want to smooth out.
4 Continue smoothing until the stroke or path is of the desired smoothness.
5 To change the amount of smoothing, double-click the Smooth tool and set the following options:
Fidelity Controls how far your curves can stray before you have to modify the path. With lower Fidelity values, the
curves will closely match the pointer’s movement, resulting in sharper angles. With higher Fidelity values, the path
will ignore small pointer movements, resulting in smoother curves. The pixel value range is 0.5 to 20 pixels.
Smoothness Controls the amount of smoothing applied when you use the tool. Smoothness can range from 0% to
100%; the higher the value, the smoother the path.
Keep Selected (InDesign only) Determines whether to keep the path selected after you smooth it.
Reshape closed paths or objects
1 Using the Direct Selection tool , do one of the following:
• Drag around the anchor points you want to select.
• Hold down Shift as you click the anchor points you want to select.
2 Position the pointer over the anchor point or path segment that you want to act as a focal point (that is, a point
that pulls the selected path segments), and click the anchor point or path segment.
3 Drag the highlighted anchor points to adjust the path. The amount of movement of a given path segment is
relative to its distance from a highlighted point:
• Selected points that act as the focal point move with the selection tool during dragging.
• Selected points that aren’t the focal point move in tandem with the dragged focal point.
• Unselected anchor points are not affected by reshaping.