Arrowhead Editing Techniques

This is actually a series of tips that all deal with the Arrowhead editor. Below are a bunch of techniques using the editor in different situations using many or just one line. The results can be used as informative graphics, or just for fun.

Version: 4 and above

The Arrowhead Editor has been around ever since FreeHand™ 4 and really hasn't changed at all. To access the editor, just select New or Option (Alt) + Click on an existing arrowhead in the pull down menu of the Stroke Inspector palette. You will see the editor like shown above. To the left are some of the basic drawing or modifying tools. On the right, you can Paste in a small drawing you have in the clipboard (with limitations described below), Copy out a current arrowhead or customize the arrowhead even further with other options. The one major downfall of editing arrowheads is that anytime you edit an arrowhead, even if it's one that already exists, FreeHand™ will add it to the arrowhead pull down menu. You could end up having 50 arrowheads with very little difference between them making it difficult to choose the right one.

You can really make almost any object into an arrowhead as long as it's one path. This one limitation can be frustrating but there are ways to work around it as you will see.

In this first example, I want to create a dashed line with the above objects as the end arrowheads. As you can see, the objects are made up of a lot of different shapes. These will not paste into the Arrowhead Editor like this.

So I select the shapes and apply the Union Operation from the Operation palette or from the Modify -> Combine menu. As you can see above, the shapes are now one piece and can be pasted into the Arrowhead Editor.

The next step is to scale your object to work well in the Arrowhead Editor so you won't have to scale it in the editor later. Although it's not apparent, the editor uses a 1 pt. line as it's preview (see the very top illustration). So you should create a 1 pt. line and scale your object exactly how you want it to appear on the end of the line like in the above example. Zooming in will help you with the placement. When you have something you like, then just Copy the Object.

Then choose the Stroke inspector from the Inspector palette. In the Beginning Arrowhead pull-down menu, choose new. Next click on the Paste in button and you should now see your object in the Preview window. Since it may be pretty small, in the Magnification pull-down menu, choose Fit. Now you can edit it even further by using the tools on the Left or you can move it around to be in the exact location of the end of the line. I would recommend that if you want to change anything in the object that you do so with the original art then re-paste it in the editor. Otherwise you may end up with a lot of the same kind of arrowheads with little changes in the Arrowhead pull-down menu. When you're finished, hit the New button and you'll see the new arrowhead in the pull-down menu. If you have another object to add for the other end of the line, repeat the above steps.

Now I create the line to add the arrowheads to. This can be any Style, Thickness and Color I want. For this example, I want it to kind of look like a spring so I made a 10 pt. dashed line.

Then I add the arrowheads I created from the Stroke Inspector. The arrowheads are totally scalable, so they enlarged with the size of my line.

Now lets say that you have an object with cutouts in the middle. Since the Arrowhead Editor won't let you paste multiple objects in, you have to fake the appearance of the cutouts. Above is a Dingbat that I want to add to the Arrowhead editor. First I converted the Dingbat to paths so I can edit it. Then I Split the object into the multiple elements.

Working in Keyline mode, I zoom in to the area where I'll fake my first cutout. I select a point from the outline (highlighted in Blue) and shift+select a point from the cutout (highlighted in Magenta). Then I choose Split from the Modify menu.

Then I shift+select both the outline and cutout pieces and choose Join from the Modify menu. In the Object Inspector palette, I turn on the Closed option. Now the elements are one continuous path instead of two separate objects.

Then I repeat those steps for any other cutout shapes that may be in the art like the above highlighted areas in the example. Now my shape is one continuous path and can be added to the Arrowhead editor.

Once added via the Arrowhead editor, you can apply the new arrowheads to any paths. Since the shape is transparent in the cutout areas, you can add some color behind the arrowhead shapes like in the above example.

These are only a few ideas of how you can really get creative with the Arrowhead Editor. If you have any great techniques you'd like to share, please send them in via the Feedback page.  

Example File Download (v7 format) Macintosh Stuffit File fhsource_arrowhead.sit Windows Zip File fhsource_arrowhead.zip