The Rotate, Scale, Shear and Free Transform Tool

In the tutorial [1] InDesign’s Work Area I talked about reference points and how to change them. If you don’t know how they work, go back to that tutorial, section The Control Palette, before you proceed with this tutorial.

The Rotate Tool

Select the item you want to rotate. Select your reference point on the Control palette. Select the Rotate Tool. Move your Rotate tool away from the reference point (the farthest the better) and drag your tool in the direction you want your item to rotate towards. You can change your reference point even just by first clicking with the Rotate Tool on top of the object you want to rotate (the reference point will be where you click). You can then rotate the object as already explained.

If you want to rotate your object 45% or of multiple of 45%, hold down shift as you use the Rotate Tool.

You can rotate your item precisely by choosing the item you want to rotate and then double click on the rotate tool. A window called Rotate will appear. Enter the angle of rotation in the window. If you enter a positive value your object will rotate anti-clock-wise, while if you enter a negative value, it will rotate clock-wise.

You can also just rotate an object from your Control palette by entering your rotation value next to the Rotation Angle icon.

Note: if you have selected the item you want to rotate with the Selection tool, and then you use the Rotate Tool, you will rotate the image frame and the image contained within all together. If you have selected your item with the Direct Selection Tool, then your image will rotate, but the frame containing it won’t. See the illustration.

The Scale Tool

This is quite a simple tool to use. Select the item you want to scale either with the Selection Tool or the Direct Selection Tool (depending on whether you want to scale the graphic with the image frame or just the graphic leaving the image frame untouched). Select the Scale Tool. Now drag away from the object you want to scale to make it bigger, or drag towards the object to make it smaller. If you want to maintain the proportions of your object, drag the Scale Tool from one of the corners of your object and hold down Shift as you do that.

“Fit Content” Buttons in the Control Palette.

In this illutration, the first button on the top left is called Fit Content to Frame, the one underneath it is called Centre Content, then you have the Fit Frame to Content button on the top right and the Fit Content Proportionally button underneath it.

Those buttons do simply what they say, but I want to just clarify one point: the Fit Content to Frame will deform your content to fit it into your frame, while the Fit Content Proportionally, will scale your image so that it fits in your frame, but will keep the proportions, so you might have some blank space left in your frame.

You can also scale objects by using the W and H value or the X and Y percentages as I have explained in the first lesson in the Control Palette section.

The Shear Tool

You operate the Shear Tool the same way you operate the Scale Tool, but instead of scaling your objects, well… it skews them… See illustration to see what effect the Shear Tool has on objects.

The Free Transform Tool

The Free Transform Tool works pretty much like the Rotate, Shear and Scale tools combined. To rotate an object: Select it with the Free Transform Tool. Move your cursor away from the object’s bounding box and a curved double arrow icon will appear. Click you mouse button and drag the cursor to rotate your object. To rotate your object of multiples of 45%, hold down shift as you drag.

To scale an object: Select it with the Free Transform Tool. Move your mouse cursor on the handles of the object’s bounding box. Drag your mouse cursor to scale your item.

To shear an object: Select it with the Free Transform Tool. Move your mouse cursor on the handles of the object’s bounding box. Start dragging your mouse cursor and then press Ctrl+Alt (Windows) or Command+Option (Macintosh). Your object will start skewing. Make sure you start dragging before you press Control+Alt or Command+Option.

[5] Previous | Next