Dumb Illustrator question

[Grasshopper]

I've noticed that when you click on a rectangle you can drag the rectangle by its centre point. However, when you click on other object types such as a line or grouped objects there is no centrepoint available. Can someone tell me why this is? I want to 'snap' the centrepoint of a group object to a guide point but I'm struggling to do it accurately.

Thanks in advance.

[BobbyG66]

I think it is because a rectangle or circle will have an exact center, it shows the center point.
On text or grouped objects the center point is now shown.

A)  Go to Edit-Preferences-General
      Make sure "Objest selection by path only" is NOT selected.
     This allows you to click on text or an object (that is filled) and drag it without using the center point.

B)  To find the center point of a grouped object to the following:
      Make a centerpoint guide
      1)  Using the line segment tool, click and drag a vertical line (hold the shift key to make straight).
      2)  Repeat above for a hroizontal line.
      3)  Make sure Align is set to "Align to artboard"
      4)  Select both lines
      5)  Right click your mouse and select "Make Guides"
      6)  Select your objects and select Align Objects both vertically and horizontally.
      7)  The guides will now show you the center point.

Good luck, hope this helps.
BobbyG66

[Crowquill]

I'm not sure I understand what you're trying to do. If you're simply trying to center multiple objects, all you need to do is select them all and then use the horizontal and/or vertical centering commands in the "Align" pallette. It's also much more acurate than trying to do it manually.

This can be combined with grouping if, for example, you have two items that need to stay together or a distance apart. In the first example I grouped the two eye shapes. When center aligned, they are centered as a grouped object and therefore keep their spacing.

Maybe if you could give a more detailed description of what you're trying to do we might be able to give you more specific tips.

[Grasshopper]

Thanks BobbyG66. That's a useful workaround and it's taught me a lot. I didn't know for instance that you could use guides within a grouped object. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to work when you lock the guides but I can live with that.

Crowquill thanks for your help as well. What I was trying to do was to align some joystick arrows around the hole drilled for the joystick's shaft. I had already drawn a cross where the shaft was to go and made it into a locked guide.

I know there are various ways to do it. But I thought that perhaps there was an obscure option that would make the centre point visible. Unfortunately, it appears Illustrator simply doesn't have this facility.

[Crowquill]

While I'm not entirely sure if it's relevent to yours, this is what I did a while back when making joystick arrows. (all 4 arrows were the same and were seperate arrows).

Create 1 arrow shape. Use the reflect tool to create a mirrored copy. Move it so that the two are the right distance apart. Group them. Double-click the rotate tool and rotate them 90?while making a copy. If you double-click on the tool it will always rotate based on the center of the grouped object and therefore give all 4 arrows a common center point. At this point I could have used the pathfinder palette to unite them into one solid shape.