Adobe Illustrator - How to determine the angle of a line segment

Glowforge Tips and Tricks
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  1. Go the the View Menu and turn on the Info Palette. (Make sure Snap to Point is also turned on.)
  2. Using the Direct Selection Tool (White Arrow) click on one endpoint of the segment and drag it to the other endpoint. Make note of the angle displayed in the Info palette before releasing the mouse button.
  3. CTRL/CMD + Z to undo the move.

:slightly_smiling_face:

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Good tip, and good illustration of why Illustrator makes me crazy.

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You can also use the measure tool and just drag along the line… or, drag from endpoint to endpoint of any two lines - It will automatically pop the info window up and display the angle.

Or, just click on two endpoints also works, I believe…

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Maybe this is a good place to ask, because I haven’t been able to figure out how to get the measure tool to snap to anything. My dislike of Illustrator is frequently my inner engineer refusing to accept tools that require eyeballing things. I can drag a line that is probably pretty close to the line I’m trying to measure, but pretty close is not what I want.

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Probably. :wink:

Go to View > Snap to Point

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You can adjust how “tight” snap to point is in the preferences (Preferences > Selection & Anchor Display > Snap to Point “X” PX).

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Illustrator isn’t a drafting program. Just like Fusion360 isn’t an illustrating program (it doesn’t mean you can’t get there - wherever there is - with both… they both have strengths/weaknesses). They do make some CAD and technical illustration plugins for Illustrator. Here’s one that isn’t horribly expensive:

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