draw rectangle exact size in cm?

[Squirrel]

Hi all,

I'm a PSE6 newbie. I'm trying to use it to create a birthday card for my DH. I have a WordArt saying Happy Birthday to go at the top, and a clipart for the picture. The blank card I've bought is 14.8cm high and 21 cm wide opened out.

I want to create a layer with 2 rectangles showing the printable area, i.e. a line down the centre.

1) How do I find the centre, where the card fold would be? Surely there must be some way.
2) How do I specify the exact measurements in cm of the rectangle? Image size only seems to allow pixels or percent.

and
3) what on earth do I put in the search in Help to find this info? I'm useless at searching - I can never think of the right words to use. I never know whether the info is there but I can't find it, or whether it's just rubbish Help.

TIA!

[frank abramonte]

There is probably another way of doing this, but this is a rather easy method of getting what you want.
Create a document 1/2 the width of your card 14.8cm high and 10.5 cm wide.
Now fill the smaller document with red (or any other color).
Now select the small document and drag it or copy it onto the large document.
Where the white and red meet is your center line.
Now with your marquee tool create a box to hold your text on each side.
Don't forget to get rid of the red background if you wish.
At this point you can draw a light blue vertical rule of 1 pixel down the center as a center line. This will probably not be visible when you print the card. Or, you can delete it just before printing.
Hope this helps, post back if you need additional help.

http://www.pixentral.com/hosted/15fR6DoxA0HNi5hpbFztl1GAA5GH7f0_thumb.jpg (http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=15fR6DoxA0HNi5hpbFztl1GAA5GH7f0)

[jo]

Another way -- turn on the grid and set it to 50%

View>grid
Edit>preferences>grid
(set it to 50%, 1 subdivision)

[TonyW]

Another way would be to go into Edit>Preferences>Grid and set the Grid Size to 50% with 1 subdivision. Make the color red so it shows up. Now when you start a new document the size of your card and View>Grid you'll have a nice red line down the middle at 50% (and one across at 50%). It's just an overlay so won't print and you can turn it off and on.

Tony

[vawitt]

...and if you want an exact size rectangle ON your new card...

Choose the rectangular marquee tool. Change the size from Normal to Fixed Size. In the Width box, type 10cm and in the Height box, type 5cm (or whatever your dimensions are..but YOU have to type the "cm" notation).

Create a new layer (Layer > new > layer) and click where you want the upper right corner of that rectangle to go and PSE will draw one.

Then, with ants still marching, Layer > Fill selection and add a color.

Do you feel duly educated about rectangles now? :)

By the way - I agree about the PSE Help...it's LOUSY. This forum is much better!

~Val in sunny IL

[frank abramonte]

Thanks Val, I had forgotten about "Change the size from Normal to Fixed Size".

[Squirrel]

Thank you so much! These are so much better than the way I eventually found. After a lot of playing, I created a document half the size I wanted and coloured it, then I changed the canvas size to the full width. That worked as well, but it's cumbersome. I knew there must be a better way!

And thank you also for reassuring me that my searching "skills" are not completely to blame. You folks rock!