How do you make multiple line stroke edges touch in Adobe Illustrator?

Question

I created some lines with the pen tool, and I want to make the edges of the stroke align in Adobe Illustrator.

I can use the up and down arrows with my keyboard, but it does not touch or overlaps. I can of course drag it with my mouse, but that is not at all ideal. I want to make dozens, if not hundreds of strokes abut one another (and I can't use shapes).

See image for reference.

Answer 1

I can think of several ways to do that fairly easily, if I understand your question correctly.

First, why not just use Smart Guides and make sure when you create the last anchor point that it is on the "intersection" of the line you are crossing? That would make them 'touching' and completely eliminate your problem. You can also use the properties panel, when you have a line selected, and simply type in the exact length the line should be (ie., whatever the distance is to the line you want to intersect with).

Perhaps you could also select all of your paths, then shift-click on the intersection line last and use the Align panel to align them to the intersection?

You could also simply draw past all of your lines that are supposed to touch, and then use the pathfinder to chop off the little bits on the end.

Or, you could again draw past all of your lines and then use something like the direct selection tool to marquee drag over all the pieces of your paths that are extruding past the intersection points. Then just delete.

Answer 2

Here's one method.

Have Smart Guides and Snap to Point ON. No other snaps are allowed.

Make duplicates of the lines without moving them; for ex. select them, copy and paste in place.

Expand the duplicates to get rectangles which are equally sized with your lines

If you want to move one line, select it and the same sized rectangle. When you move them together the rectangle snaps and the line comes along.

If you want to be sure the line and the rectangle stay together when you make your moves, group them. You can ungroup later. The Layers panel shows groups and what they contain.

You can delete the rectangles when they are not any more needed. Select them in the layers panel to be sure what's deleted.

The next method is an alternative:

Let's assume the yellow line should be moved upwards so that it touches the grey line as you have wanted. The grey line must stay where it happens to be and the yellow line must not move horizontally:

Prepare copies of the lines. Expand the copies and apply Object > Path > Add Anchor Points to get as wide rectangles which have anchors in the middle of the sides:

Select the grey rectangle with the normal selection tool. Hold Ctrl to get temporarily ON the direct selection tool and drag the left mid node to the right endpoint of the grey line. It snaps and the rest of the rectangle follows:

Move the yellow rectangle from its top left corner with the direct selection tool so that it meets the bottom left corner of the grey rectangle:

Drag the yellow rectangle longer so that its left end is at the same X-coordinate as the right end of the yellow line. Smart Guides show the right length:

Move the yellow line by dragging its right end with the direct selection tool to the mid left node of the yellow rectangle:

Move the rectangles away. They can be useful if you have more equally wide lines to drag: