I've been experimenting with the new Freeform app and the first thing I notice is there is no way to flip an object horizontally or even rotate it. Is there any way to do these things? For example if you insert a chair into a drawing it faces to the left. You can't insert a right-facing chair or simply flip horizontally the left-facing chair.
Thanks for any input
MacBook Air, macOS 13.1
bmwtwisty wrote:
I've been experimenting with the new Freeform app and the first thing I notice is there is no way to flip an object horizontally or even rotate it. Is there any way to do these things? For example if you insert a chair into a drawing it faces to the left. You can't insert a right-facing chair or simply flip horizontally the left-facing chair.
You posted this in the Ventura forum. I just figured out how to do this on the iPad. Hopefully it is the same.
To rotate, press and hold inside an object, then with another finger, touch the trackpad and do the rotate guesture.
To flip, grab on of the resize handles and drag it towards the middle to make the object smaller. Keep going. Eventually it will flip in that orientation.
bmwtwisty wrote:
I've been experimenting with the new Freeform app and the first thing I notice is there is no way to flip an object horizontally or even rotate it. Is there any way to do these things? For example if you insert a chair into a drawing it faces to the left. You can't insert a right-facing chair or simply flip horizontally the left-facing chair.
You posted this in the Ventura forum. I just figured out how to do this on the iPad. Hopefully it is the same.
To rotate, press and hold inside an object, then with another finger, touch the trackpad and do the rotate guesture.
To flip, grab on of the resize handles and drag it towards the middle to make the object smaller. Keep going. Eventually it will flip in that orientation.
I initially started with the iPad and Freeform and discovered you can't flip a shoe or chair horizontally - then later upgraded my Mac to Ventura and discovered the same thing. Now it seems, as Barney-15E confirms for me, if the object has 4 handles it can't be flipped. If it has 6 handles then you're good to go. It can be rotated and, as Leonie points out, holding the shift and command key allow for precise rotations. Unfortunately I've yet to find a way to flip a 4-handle object which seems kind of silly if Apple is including objects facing only in one direction but in reality can face both ways. Heck, Apple could just take the code from Preview and implement it in Freeform. It's an odd omission, IMO. I'll keep playing to see if there's a way to get around the four-handle limitation. I'm still trying your suggestion for the iPad version. I'm assuming you're using the Magic Trackpad or a Bridge keyboard(?)
Thanks for the input
I got it. On the Mac, click and select the chair for example, then press CTL-click on the chair. On the popup menu de-select Constrain Proportions and you automatically get 6 handles. From there, drag a handle to the other side and you can "flip horizontally" the object. Now you can have two facing chairs or shoes or whatever.
I have a Magic Trackpad with my iPad Pro and did this with the trackpad. If you don't have a trackpad with your iPad just select the object with your fingertip (not the Apple Pencil), the menu pops up and in the circle with three dots in that popup menu you can then select Constrain Proportions.
This should be a more clearly accessible menu item, IMO.
Grab one of the handles and drag it to the other side.
To rotate an object freely on your Mac, hold down the command ⌘ key while hovering the pointer over on of the handles. A curved arrow should appear. Grab it to rotate the object. If you also hold down the shift key, you should be able to rotate in in increments of 45° degrees.
As far as I can tell, the chair only has four control handles and I can flip it. It does take a very large drag to get it to flip because you essentially have to drag the handle until you reverse the size.
Thanks. It does work on objects with six handles but not on four (like the chair or a shoe). That’s a good tip, though
Um. In case you didn't notice the image doesn't actually flip. 😎
bmwtwisty wrote:
I'll keep playing to see if there's a way to get around the four-handle limitation.
That would be best. It wasn't quite intuitive, but it works fine on 4 handled objects. I even used the chair.
I'm still trying your suggestion for the iPad version. I'm assuming you're using the Magic Trackpad or a Bridge keyboard(?)
No. But I do have a pencil.
I used an office chair to test. I’m pretty sure it had four. I think the number of handles is size-dependent.
As léonie said like this:
OOOOOOOPs! I was sure I got it to flip before I made the animated screenshot. Back to the drawing board.
I expect you can only flip shapes.
dialabrain wrote:
I expect you can only flip shapes.
You can flip drawings too. But if you have an image you want to flip, you can flip that with other tools.
etresoft wrote:
You can flip drawings too. But if you have an image you want to flip, you can flip that with other tools.
Yes, drawn shapes. 😎
how can I rotate or flip objects in new Freeform program?
