Cut a square in half to produce line corners

Question

Is it possible to cut a square in half without it forming triangles?

I want a to dissect a square into "4 corners" and I find the line tool is inaccurate.

Here is the effect I was trying to achieve:

I wanted to cut a square out of another square to create corners like this, but the corners were closing paths and making triangles instead of 1 corner:

Answer 1

How about this?

1. Create the square
2. Duplicate it ctrl+c then ctrl+f and rotate it 45 degrees (resize if needed).
3. With the rotated top square selected first, shift select the bottom.
4. Open your Pathfinder panel and click the second button Minus Front to cut the top shape out of the bottom one.

Not sure exactly what you want as a final product, so here are a few options:

• If you want to separate your corners, simply right click and ungroup.
• If you want to delete the inside edges, just direct select them and delete.
• If you want to combine the 4 corners into one object, click Unite, the first button on the pathfinder panel.

Answer 2

As pointed in the comments : "an easy way to go from your first image to your second image would be to use the direct selection tool (white arrow, a), select the points at the corner of each triangle (holding shift), then copy and paste just those points. – user568458 3 hours ago" would work. Remember to close your shapes afterwards if you want to be able to use Pathfinder on them. (select two points you want to close and cmd+j to join)

You can also select your square, go to the object menu > Path > Add anchor points. This will add halfway anchor points which should make your job easier. Just use scissors afterwards and close the shapes.

Or just use the minus pen tool to remove one corner of your square, and you'll get a square triangle. Copy paste that 4 times. You can use the rotate tool and change the pivot to the center of the square on top if you want to get perfect alignement as shown in the screenshot you provided.

Remember to hold shift when rotating your shape to maintain steps of 45 degree angles.