Measuring

Measuring lets you display the distance between points, objects and page elements on the page—using either a dedicated Measure Tool or a hover over feature. An Area Tool additionally measures the area of one or more objects, plus the perimeter of a shape and open curve lengths.

Measuring with the Measure Tool

The Measure Tool is hidden by default however it can be added to your set via the top menu's View>Customize Tools option.

The tool lets you accurately measure the distance between a fixed point and an object's edge, corner, center or at the intersection of two objects vertically, horizontally or diagonally. Curves and page elements such as page center, edge and edges (corners) can also be measured to. The reverse is also true—you can measure from any page element to any point or an object's edge, corner or at object intersection. You can even measure between placed guides.

Measuring guides with the Measure Tool

Measure Tool: (A) Point - Point (horizontally, vertically, diagonally), (B) Point - Curve, (C) Point - Center, (D) Point - Line, (E) Point - Guide, (F) Point - Page center, (G) Point - Page center (tangent; with projection line), (H) Point - Page edge and (I) Point - Page edge at Page center and (J) Along a diagonal straight line.

The Measure Tool is also plane-aware, so measurement can be made along the axes of isometric or axonometric grids.

Measuring with the Area Tool

This tool displays the area, total perimeter length or specific straight-line segment lengths of an object when you hover over it. For area measurements, linear hatching indicates the targeted object along with the object's area as an overlaid readout.

Measuring single-object areas with the Area Tool

Single-object area/perimeter measurement with the Area Tool: (A) Area of a closed object, (B) Perimeter of a object, (C) Straight-line 'cusped' segment length on the object.

You can also calculate the area of multiple objects by clicking an initial object and using modifier keys to include further objects. A blue highlight indicates objects included in the total selection, while dark-blue linear hatching (not shown), on hover over of an object in that selection, identifies it as the 'active' object and reports just its area measurement.

Measuring multi-object areas with the Area Tool
Multi-object area measurement of selected objects with the Area Tool.

Overlapping objects will report the Total area on a hover-over readout; nonoverlapping objects will report it on the context toolbar only.

Measuring between objects

Using the with the Move Tool and shape tools will display measurements between objects as you move your cursor around the page. These relate to the distance between the selected object(s) and other object (or page elements) and will update dynamically as the cursor moves.

Measuring guides between objects

'Hover over' measurements displaying the size of the gaps between the selected circle and the square.

Measuring guides with nudge

'Hover over' measurements displayed when a circle is nudged to the right using the right arrow key.

For example, with a shape selected, measurements will show the distance, using labeled arrows, between the shape and:

The measurement will then update as the cursor moves over an object to show the size of the horizontal and vertical gaps between this object and the selection.

Measure Tool To display distance measurements:
  1. Select the Measure Tool.
  2. Do one of the following:
    • Click-drag from a start point to an end point.
    • Click for a start point, then click for an end point.

Use the to clear any measurement.

To display measurements on hover over:

The target object will display measurements from the selected object to the target object (if hovered over) or page element (if no objects are hovered over).

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