The most basic building blocks in Adobe Illustrator are polygons. To demonstrate in Illustrator how to make a triangle (the most primitive polygon), the fastest and simplest place to start will be the Polygon Tool in the main Tool Bar. Using the Polygon Tool certainly isn’t the only way of making a triangle, but it’s the most logical place to begin.
Starting with the Polygon Tool
Select the Polygon Tool. If you want to start with a Triangle, click once on the artboard where you want the shape to appear. A dialogue box will appear asking what radius you want the shape to be and how many sides you want it to have. Illustrator will remember the last settings you entered, so if you want to make another triangle, perhaps at a different angle, drag the cursor across the art board (still with the Polygon Tool selected) and you’ll see the shape of a triangle appear and rotate as you drag your cursor around the screen. The width and height of the shape will change as you alter the scale of the triangle. By default the triangle will be created from the shape’s centre. If you would like the point of origin to be different, with the triangle you just created selected, and with the Polygon Tool still active, go to the Illustrator Control Bar at the top of the screen - Window/Control. The centre handle will be selected if the triangle is being created from a central point of origin. Click one of the other little handles to change the reference point of origin and drag / create a new triangle.
If you’d like to scale the size of the triangle, simply select the black pointer Selection Tool, select the triangle, hold down the SHIFT key and drag one of the handles of the bounding box, thus changing the size of the shape to the required size. If you’d like to convert the triangle to a Scalene triangle (with all sides and angles different), choose the white pointer Direct Selection Tool. Select one of the three points of the triangle and drag it in any direction you desire. The Polygon Tool can be used to make a shape with any number of sides you desire - not just triangles. There are many ways to skin a cat, and many ways to create a triangle in Illustrator.
Other Methods to Create Triangles
Another way is to use the Pen Tool and create the shape by clicking on the art board four times. Alternatively you could create the three points and then select the two open endpoints using the Direct Selection Tool. Yet another way to create a triangle in Illustrator is to first create a square or rectangle by using the Rectangle Tool (found in the same sublist as the Polygon Tool on the Tool Bar). Next, with the square / rectangle selected, go to Object/Path/Add Anchor Points. Now choose the Pen Tool and hover over the top left corner until a little ‘-’ symbol appears next to the Pen icon. Click when you see this and the top left corner anchor will be deleted. Once these four anchor points have been deleted you’ll have your new Isosceles triangle, although you’ll probably want to delete the final dividing anchor point on the bottom middle edge in order to get unbroken sides all round.
Make any shape, select it, then go to object, convert shape, triangle. Polygon Tool, Width: 1 and Height .866. Thanks Jeffrey. Any idea what is wrong with my calculations? The ratio of the base to the height of an equilateral triangle is the square root of 3 x the base divided by 2. So for a 2" equilateral the height is (1.732 x 2)/2. Do it in Illustrator, copy, paste in ID. Not really. ID also has a polygon tool hidden under the other shape tools.
InDesign-Specific Tricks and Techniques
InDesign tools & scripts for typesetters, form designers, and translators show that drawing a triangle can be approached through several workflows. The Pen Tool is a versatile tool in InDesign that allows you to create custom shapes, including triangles. Select the Pen Tool from the Tools panel located on the left side of the screen. To close the shape and complete your triangle, click on the first point (anchor) you created. The Polygon Tool is a quick and easy way to create triangles and other polygon shapes. Select the Polygon Tool from the Tools panel. Click and hold on the canvas, and then press the “Up Arrow” or “Down Arrow” key on your keyboard to change the number of sides of the polygon. You can also create a triangle using the Line Tool to draw each side of the shape.
After creating your triangle, you can customize its appearance by changing its fill color, stroke color, and stroke width. After creating your triangle, you may want to rotate or scale it to fit your design. Click and hold the corner handles of the triangle’s bounding box. A double-headed arrow will appear, allowing you to rotate the triangle. To scale the triangle, click and drag the corner handles while holding the Shift key to maintain the aspect ratio. InDesign offers various effects that you can apply to your triangle to enhance its appearance. You can use your triangle as a clipping path to mask an image or apply text wrapping to make text flow around the triangle.
By mastering the different techniques to create, transform, and apply effects to triangles in InDesign, you can take your design skills to the next level. It is not that easy to draw a triangle in InDesign as you like it. If you wish to draw a triangle you select the polygon tool, you click once in the document page and you set the number of sides to three. But there is still the issue of how you set the angle of your triangle. Another way of drawing a triangle is by drawing a different shape, a e.g. rectangle or ellipse, and to convert this shape to a triangle. To do this select the shape and click on Object > Convert Shape > Triangle. This, however, still does not offer a way of setting the angle of your triangle. You can try to create the triangle of your choice by transforming it using the buttons you see on the picture. It is not that easy to use these tools effectively though. Especially if you want to make a right-angle (90°) that fits the contours of your document page exactly. To achieve this there is a little trick you can use. Draw a rectangle (it does not yet have to be the preferred size, height and width) then use the Pen Tool (press P) and click on one of the corners. This corner will be deleted and you will have the perfect right-angled triangle.
Sure, you can make a perfect rectangle or ellipse with one of several tools in InDesign (or hold down the Shift key while you drag to make it a perfect square or circle). But what about triangles? I often find myself in need of an equilateral triangle (where all sides are the same length), but InDesign doesn’t have a triangle tool. Instead of drawing with a “triangle tool,” just draw out any shape (even just an open path) on your page and choose Object > Convert Shape > Triangle. Yes, that’s yet another menu item that most users don’t even see, no matter how long they’ve been using the program. When you do this, you typically get an isosceles triangle (where only two sides are the same length). Here’s another way to get a triangle (this one even works way back in InDesign CS!): Use the Polygon tool (which is hiding under the normal frame tools). Double-click the Polygon tool in the Tools panel to open its options dialog box. Set it to 3 sides and a Star Inset to 0% and you’ve just defined a triangle. Click OK and drag the cursor out to create a triangle. In a right-angled triangle (or “right triangle”), two lines in the triangle are perpendicular (that is, they form a 90-degree angle). How best to form one of those? Draw a rectangle, switch to the Pen tool (press P), then click on one corner.
- Use the Polygon Tool to create triangles with a specified number of sides and origin point.
- Convert shapes (Rectangle to Triangle) for precise angles and equilateral outcomes.
- Employ Pen Tool and point deletion techniques to craft right, isosceles, or equilateral triangles.
- Experiment with rotation, scaling, clipping paths, and text wrapping to integrate triangles into layouts.
