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In order to draw a technical graphic, I am trying to connect a 17mm horizontal line to a 1mm vertical line in Illustrator CS6. I need to work at 1:1 scale in order not limit possible mistakes when I CNC the part.

enter image description here

Screenshot

So I want the points at the end of each stroke to line up so I could join them. Unfortunately, the object skips around instead of lining up. I changed the minimum pixel increment and also tried using the Align panel, nothing has worked.

Please note I am using an older version of Illustrator. This is my question and this is the help I need, suggesting I purchase a newer computer to achieve this will not help.

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  • Imgur blocks my VPN unfortunately, so I can't see the image. Are the paths open or closed? Is it only straight lines? The align buttons can't align the paths?
    – Scott
    Commented Oct 15 at 7:06
  • No, the align buttons don't align the paths, the shapes remain away from each other when I click align. They snap away from each other when I drag to align and release mouse. I cannot upload the animated GIF to SE because of their poor recent decisions
    – MicroMachine
    Commented Oct 15 at 16:13
  • Different system. can see animation now. Do you have Use Preview Bounds selected in the prefs??? I typically toggle to Outline mode, align, then toggle back to Preview when spine alignment is imperative.
    – Scott
    Commented Oct 15 at 17:21
  • @Scott I checked "Use preview bounds" in the preferences and it didn't make a single difference. With another version of illustrator, are you able to create a 17mm horizontal line and a 1mm vertical line and aline their anchor points? When I try to move the objects on X and Y in the transform panel bar at the top, AI isn't letting me move it to a round pixel position (snaps from Y: 244px to 243,5 or 244,5) - wait actually I think the problem is the "Align to pixel grid" option? I think I found the answer
    – MicroMachine
    Commented Oct 15 at 17:55
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    Align to Pixel Grid would certainly causes shifts, especially if working small.
    – Scott
    Commented Oct 16 at 0:07

3 Answers 3

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Illustrator default settings are a bit bad for people who do anything other than page layout. Particularily in the RGB presets presets put on pixel snapping.

In illustrator gridsnap and pixelsnap override many other settings. If you are doing anything other than very simple graphical things for screen that end up exported into a raster file, then pixel snapping needs to be turned off.

CNC macining or technical drawing work, like dieline, cutter lines etc. should all be done without pixel snapping.

So make sure View > Snapping > Snap To Pixels is in fact not turned off.

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From your screenshot, the issue you're encountering is that the second line is snapped based on its thickness and not on the line itself. You can either:

  • use the Align panel to justify and both lines to the right and to the bottom. I assume (from the screenshot) that the lines are horizontal and vertical, so there is no issue due to an angle.
  • temporarily remove the stroke of the second line so that the line correctly snaps close to the first one, and when the position is correct, you can put the stroke back.

Note that to check the alignement, you might be interested in using the Outline mode with Ctrl + Y. Hope that helps!

Edit: both solutions might require to turn off other snapping effects in View > Snapping.

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  • Please check the updated Imgur gallery - the Align panel as I said in my question doesn't Align the shapes, they remain apart from each other. Even with the Ctrl+Y as you can see in the second screenshot. I wonder if this is beyond the limits of AI's precision level?
    – MicroMachine
    Commented Oct 15 at 16:15
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    @MicroMachine I believe you've got another type of snapping! Try and select View > Snapping > Snap To Pixels. If you look closely at the distances annotations in your video, your snapping points change every 0.5 pixel in every direction, whence my guess...
    – Pitchoune
    Commented Oct 15 at 20:22
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A more precise alternative is to outline the strokes via Object / Path / Outline Stroke, which converts them to shapes (eg. rectangles), the size of which you then you can control more accurately and yes, use CTRL+Y to go into outline mode and see the edges better, and snap your shapes easier.

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  • I do not want to outline the strokes, they need to be exported as a SVG file once I am done and fleshing the strokes out would lose the precision I need. I need to align single points with each other, not faces
    – MicroMachine
    Commented Oct 15 at 16:16

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