This technique is for drawing isometric or oblique rectangular shapes with Macromedia® FreeHand. It is similar to Drawing Technique Number 3, but instead of being a freeform technique, this one uses the Transform panel to control the angles. This tutorial was done with FreeHand 9.

You may want to use this technique where you have to use precision (like in technical illustration). Another reason to use this technique over the previous tutorial is where you need to make a number of boxes or rectangles with the same orientation. All the shapes can be resized while maintaining their angles. You can simply copy them and reuse them without having to transform them individually. I'll provide examples of this at the end of the tutorial

1. Create a new document and click View > Snap To Point. This setting plays an important role in this technique. Next, select the Rectangle tool in the Toolbox.

2. Draw a rectangle in the workspace.

3. Click Window > Panels > Transform to bring up the Transform panel. Click the "Skew" button (below left) then enter "15" in the box with a "v:" next to it under "Skew angles:". The "V" is for "vertical". Click "Apply" to apply to transform the rectangle (below right).

4. Select the Rectangle tool again and draw another rectangle to the left of the first one similar to the example below.

5. Use the Transform panel to give this rectangle a vertical skew of minus 25 degrees. Click "Apply" to transform the rectangle.

6. Position the mouse pointer near the lower right corner of the left rectangle. When you see a small solid square next to the pointer, press and hold the mouse button down then drag the object until it snaps to the lower left corner point of the rectangle on the right.

7. Position the mouse pointer over the upper left corner point of the left triangle (below left). When you see the pointer with the solid square next to it, click and drag this corner point to adjust the rectangle to the desired width (below right).

8. Once the desired width is attained, position the mouse pointer over the opposite point (below left). Click and drag this point downwards until it snaps to the corner point of the rectangle on the right (below right).

9. Two of the rectangles are now complete. Next, you'll be adding the top rectangle.

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