Confused editing 'lines' in Illustrator

Question

I'm new here, so I'll start from the very beginning. While working in Illustrator, I find it damn hard to edit the lines sometimes. I've tried to draw a data flow/nodes shape, that looks like several small angled lines of same width parallel to each other (If I said some rubbish you didn't understand, you can google 'tech data flow vector', there's an image of CPU and the lines going out from it, exactly what I was talking about). Quite easy to draw it, the problem is editing. No matter if it's a 1 px rectangle or a pen tool drawing, inner or outer line - when I group/ unite several of those and try to change their size (no matter if it's dragging with mouse or through scaling), they all go into a bloody mess (for example, some parts of lines disappear, replaced with strange wide spaces, and so on...). So the question is - how can I avoid that and get normal straight lines with similar width? Please tell me how if you know. Best regards!

Answer 1

For an application such as this, rather than drawing all those angled lines, do this:

• With the Pen tool, draw the outside edge of your flow vector. (What you call "inside" and "outside" doesn't matter.)

• Draw the opposite edge parallel to your first.

• Select the Blend tool, and double-click on each of your lines to invoke the blend.

• Double-click the Blend tool icon in the toolbar to open the blend dialog, and choose Specified Steps.

• Enter the number of internal lines you require.

You'll find that this combination is scalable up or down without introducing uneven gaps, because the gaps are calculated rather than explicitly drawn. Any changes you make to the stroke widths will be reflected in the blend.