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Must-See Preferences
Like this article? We recommend
Like this article? We recommend
Like this article? We recommend
Must-See Preferences
Several preferences (Edit > Preferences [Windows] Illustrator > Preferences [Mac OS]) everyone should touch at some point in their Illustrator careers, and here are a few of those found in the Preferences dialog box:
- General settings: Select Use Preview Bounds. Suppose you apply a drop shadow to a rectangle. By selecting Use Preview Bounds, the bounding box will go around the shadow and note just the rectangle. This can be very useful for alignments (see Figure 5).
- Scale Strokes & Effects (also found at the bottom of the Transform panel in Illustrator CS6): This setting I couldnβt live without. Turn it on, and the strokes and effects will scale with scaled content (see Figure 6). Ever taken a shape with a stroke applied and made it a lot smaller? The stroke usually stays the same weight. With this option selected, it would scale (see Figure 6).
- Selection & Anchor Display: Make anchor points bigger by clicking the button to the farthest right in the Anchors option (see Figure 7).
- Guides & Grid: Ever zoom in really closely to artwork and the pixel grid appears (greater than 600% zoom)? If you donβt want to see it, you can deselect Show Pixel Grid.
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Figure 5 Without Use Preview Bounds selected (left), and with Use Preview Bounds selected (right)
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Figure 6 Scale with Scale Strokes & Effects selected
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Figure 7 Change the anchor point size