Is it possible to place rectangles and circles by specifying the co-ordinates of their center points.

It seems that I can only place them by specifying the co-ordinates of their lower left bounding box which I therefore must calculate manually.

Thanks
HP

As far as I know, it's not possible. But if you don't want to do any math, there's a work around (although it's a little tedious, so the math might be quicker).

1. Duplicate the object.
2. Use the Transform dialog (Shift-Ctrl-M) to reduce the duplicate by half in both dimensions.
3. Now you can use the Align and Distribute dialog (Shift-Ctrl-A) to align the real object with its tiny duplicate. For example, move the tiny duplicate so that its upper left corner is positioned where you want the center of the original to end up. Then select the original, the tiny duplicate, choose the "Last Selected" option in the Align dialog, and align bottoms and right sides. Now the center of the original is exactly where the upper left corner of the tiny duplicate is.

Create a layer to keep the tiny duplicates on, then you can turn that layer off when you don't need to see them, but you'll still have them if you need to reposition anything.

Thank you for the reply kelan. I ended up doing something similar to what you suggested.

I create a small circle (example: radius 0.2"). Then I duplicate it and place the duplicates at the various x,y locations I want. Then I transform-move them by -0.1",-0.1" so that they are centered on the x,y locations I want.

Then I draw my rectangle and circle objects and align them vertically and horizontally to these reference circles.

HP