![]() ![]() Set your default Units next: Pixels are great for screen-ready elements Points, Picas, Inches, Millimeters and Centimeters and are widely used for printed matter. Under Type, adjust the default Tracking and Baseline Shift values to gain finer control over the placement of glyphs when adjusting them with the keyboard shortcuts Alt/Option+Left/Right Arrow (Tracking & Kerning), and Shift+Alt/Option+Up/Down Arrow (Baseline Shift). Conversely, when your artwork is measured in feet or meters, you’ll want to greatly increase this increment, or you will hardly see items move when using the arrow keys. Remember that holding down Shift while pressing an arrow key moves by 10 times the amount specified here. Starting with General, adjust the keyboard increment to gain control over moving selections with your arrow keys. Set these preferences in the General, Type, Unit, Guides & Grid, and Smart Guides sections. Which measuring units and increments work best in Illustrator? The answer depends on the type of artwork you create, and Illustrator’s defaults will rarely suit every need. Many Illustrator pros I consulted with change the defaults to better differentiate anchors and handles and make them easier to grab. The default appearance of path anchors, handles and bounding boxes is also up to you: Click on Selection & Anchor Display to adjust these. ![]() This helps set guides apart visually from your artwork’s paths. Click any of the color swatches shown in Preferences to customize them with your operating system’s color pickers.Ĭhanging the Guides’ color with the macOS color pickerĪnother guide setting worth changing is suggested by Carlos Garro from Astute Graphics ( Instagram ): He changes the Guides Style from the default Lines to Dots. Illustrator’s default colors for guides are saturated and highly visible, so I find them distracting. You can change the colors of guides in two places: Guides & Grid, and Smart Guides. You can choose pure white or have the Canvas match the overall interface brightness. Any option you click on is applied immediately. I prefer a lighter interface which is selected here. Start with the User Interface section and set the application Brightness. You’ll need to visit several sections of the Preferences dialog to find all the options. These settings are not merely cosmetic: They can help make the user interface elements less obtrusive for improved focus on your art. The appearance of Illustrator’s tools, panels, guides, and grids can be customized to suit your wishes. Here are a few of the settings worth changing. The 15 sections in the Preferences dialog box can seem overwhelming. Illustrator can be set up to work the way you prefer, so I like thinking of the Preferences as yours, rather than the application’s. You will be prompted to restart Illustrator to activate the fresh Preferences file (you may have to close the dialog box to see the warning). You’ll also find a Preferences button on the Control bar when nothing is selected in your document.Ĭlick the Reset Preferences button at the bottom of the dialog box when you’re in the General section.On macOS Choose Illustrator > Preferences > General or type Command-K. ![]() On Windows Choose Edit > Preferences > General or type Control-K.Turn off this option if you want to start fresh with all new factory default preferences.Įven when you’re not upgrading, Illustrator gives you a way to start fresh. To install the new version as an update, the CC app offers to import your previous settings and preferences. If you need to install a new version of Illustrator, use the Creative Cloud desktop app. Here are a few tips from Illustrator pros on tweaking preferences to make your work more enjoyable and productive. Of course no group of settings is perfect for everyone, so to get the most out of Illustrator you should spend some time getting familiar with its preferences and customize them to your liking. Like all Adobe apps, Illustrator has an elaborate Preferences dialog box bristling with settings that control how the program looks and works. ![]()
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