Hi!  I'm a beginner at AI and bought a book to go with it but it's not
helping me too much.  I had a couple beginner questions regarding the
Pen tool.

a) when I am using the Pen tool, click on a different tool and go back
to using the Pen tool, I try to continue where I left off.  I find that
even though I select the old line, the only way I can draw from where I
left off is to drag a starting angle from the last point from where I
can create an arch or a straight line.  Is that correct?

b) I'm having trouble getting the fills correctly.  I basically want to
draw something similar to the olympic rings.  The problem is when I
select No Fill for my lines, then it doesn't appear that the rings are
on top of each other.  Instead it appears I just drew it with my Pencil
where all the rings are on the same layer.  (even when I'm using
different layers per ring).  Or another example is I'm trying to draw
two letters on top of each other (like how taggers would).  So if I
draw DO or something, the curved part of D assuming D is underneath,
should appear in the hold of the O, but it does not.  Everything
appears on the same layer.

c) lastly, I'm having trouble selecting the handles of the curves to
change the curvature.  I select the pen drawing, and the anchor points
and handles sometimes appear.  Then when I try to click on the handle,
it disappears on me.  The only way I can get those handles to appear
and be able to modify them is if I use the convert anchor point tool,
make my curve into a straight line, and then undo the process, then the
handles show up and I can then grab them.  I'm guessing Adobe did not
create the program this way, but like I said, I am having trouble.

Any help would be great!  Thanks!

-jwfc

> a) when I am using the Pen tool, click on a different tool and go back
> to using the Pen tool, I try to continue where I left off.  I find that
> even though I select the old line, the only way I can draw from where I
> left off is to drag a starting angle from the last point from where I
> can create an arch or a straight line.  Is that correct?

it looks to me that you have to com e very close to where you left off
and as soon as a slash (\) appears close to the pen tool, you can
continue as you did not stop. I am using CS2.

> b) I'm having trouble getting the fills correctly.  I basically want to
> draw something similar to the olympic rings.  The problem is when I
> select No Fill for my lines, then it doesn't appear that the rings are
> on top of each other.  Instead it appears I just drew it with my Pencil
> where all the rings are on the same layer.  (even when I'm using
> different layers per ring).  Or another example is I'm trying to draw
> two letters on top of each other (like how taggers would).  So if I
> draw DO or something, the curved part of D assuming D is underneath,
> should appear in the hold of the O, but it does not.  Everything
> appears on the same layer.

sorry, I do not get it.

> c) lastly, I'm having trouble selecting the handles of the curves to
> change the curvature.  I select the pen drawing, and the anchor points
> and handles sometimes appear.  Then when I try to click on the handle,
> it disappears on me.  The only way I can get those handles to appear
> and be able to modify them is if I use the convert anchor point tool,
> make my curve into a straight line, and then undo the process, then the
> handles show up and I can then grab them.

You have to select the white arrow (direct selection tool), click on
the object and then modify the locations of anything.

Pluton