[techtrucker]

I'm very new to Illustrator, and am attempting to do a few technical illustrations. The problem I am having is trying to join two separately drawn lines together, and having the corner points work out. In the pic below, the first example was two lines drawn using the Line tool. You may have to squint a little to see that since they are both blunt ended lines, the corner isn't sharp. The second example is what I'm after, but that was only accomplished by drawing the shape continuously with the Pen tool. The third example shows trying to join two lines drawn separately by the Pen tool. I've monkeyed around with trying to join paths, and also with the cap and join options for Stroke. It's really hard for me to try and draw the shapes I need in one shot with the Pen tool.

I have the feeling I'm missing something basic, and would appreciate any advice. Thanks!

[KeriVit]

First off, use the pen tool instead.

Click your starting place, let go, place the mouse at the next spot, click and release, go to point 3 click. Voila. You may need to make the fill None after.

Don't drag unless you want a curved line segment.

Once you have the basic shape- you can use the white arrow to click on each segment and move them.

Also right now with this one, you can take the white arrow and drag a small selection over the two endpoint and join them (apple J)

Does that make sense?

[techtrucker]

Yes, that's helpful, thanks! I was drawing the lines separate then trying to join them, reason being I have to use measured lines. And what I was doing wrong with the join was shift-selecting the two segments with the "regular" selection tool rather than the direct select tool.

[iREZ]

you can also use the hollow point tool and select just the two edges you'd like to join and hit apple-j

[KeriVit]

Kinda what I said.

[iREZ]

sorry...short attention span.