Drag & Drop Color Techniques

This is really not a tip, but more of a reminder as it states how to do this in the manual, but how many of us really read the manual front to back? As a power user, I haven't really read the FreeHand manual since 3.1, except to look at the new features presented in the new releases. This great feature is one I've even overlooked from FreeHand 7 and it's definitely worth looking at.

Version: 7 and above

How many times have you dragged a color swatch from the color list to apply to a fill to an object, and apply the color to the line instead? Well you can use these keyboard modifiers when dragging color swatches over an object to apply the effect you want.

Command + Drag (Mac) / Control + Shift + Drag (Win) When holding this modifier key and dragging a color swatch, it changes the swatch icon to have a colored border. This only effects the line color.

Shift + Drag (Mac) / Shift + Drag (Win) When holding this modifier key and dragging a color swatch, it removes the line from the swatch icon. This only effects the fill color.

Control + Drag (Mac) / Control + Drag (Win) When holding this modifier key and dragging a color swatch, it turns the swatch icon into a diamond. This will create a gradient fill. Where you drop the color, the angle of the gradient is applied. You can edit previously created gradients in this same manner.

Option + Drag (Mac) / Alt + Drag (Win) When holding this modifier key and dragging a color swatch, it turns the swatch icon into a circle. This will create a radial fill. Where you drop the color, the center of the radial is applied. You can edit previously created radial fills in this same manner.

Who knows what other kinds of neat features lurk for the finding. Always remember that they make those manuals for something ;-)