Seeing Red

If you’re working on artwork that contains lots of red, the red View Box in the Navigator palette (Window>Navigator) might be a little difficult to see.

In this situation (or if you just don’t like the color red), you can change the color of the View Box by using the flyout menu in the Navigator palette and choosing Palette Options. In the dialog, choose the color you’d like to use for the View Box, and click OK.

Change Tools Quickly

There are many sets of tools that you access in the Toolbox by pressing on the visible tool, which pops up a menu of additional tools. Another method to switch quickly among tools in a set is to hold down Option and click on the visible tool. Each time you click, you’ll switch to the next tool in the set.

Keep Only Selected Objects

As a quick way to hide all the objects you are not currently working on, try this: Select the object or objects you want to work on, then press Command-Option-Shift-3. All the unselected objects will be hidden. To show all objects again, press Command-Option-3.

Hide Bounding Box

Here’s a shortcut that you’ll want to memorize – the ability to show and hide the bounding box. The bounding box is a great way to resize objects without switching to the Scale tool. On the other hand, sometimes the bounding box is very distracting, so the option to show or hide it is very useful. Just press Command-Shift-B each time you want to toggle the box on and off.

Really Fit in Window

Press Command-Zero to change the view to Fit in Window, but if that’s not zoomed out far enough, try this: hold down Command and double-click on the Zoom tool in the Toolbox. The view will change to 31.3%, the smallest zoom view possible, which is ideal for those poster-size image.