Participant

Answered

can't snap to objects in illustrator. not as simple as it sounds...

Forum|Forum|16 years ago
September 23, 2009
6 replies
217447 views

Up until today, I have been working in illustrator fine. I could snap one object to another, when drawing lines, line segment ends anchor points could snap easily, align things to other anchor points as i'm drawing them, etc.. Now that is not the case.Also, before I could click right in the middle of an object and it would select it, now I must click on the actual path that surrounds and object.

I'm working in Windows with CS4. I have went to the "view" menu and made sure "snap to point" is turned on, it is. I even tried snap to grid. None of this works.

Please, any help would be appreciated. Thanks

How to

Correct answer Jesseham

Sounded like that was going to be the answer.... almost... that did help, in that now I can select a shape by click anywhere on it, however the other half of my problem still remains. If any of you have worked in autocad, there is a feature called "smart tracking," where it would recognize end points and such within the document, and register snaps with those.there was a feature that was working in illustrator just like this...

ex. if i'm drawing a horizontal line right above another, and want its end point to stop at the same point as the one below, it would normally register with that and give you snaps or stopping points in space that would let you know where that point was at. sooooo... anyone know how i can get this back??? thanks again

Smart Guides.

Command-u or view->smart guides

C

Caitlin_108

Participant

i'm having the same issue and can't seem to find an answer anywhere. I've included a video to demonstrate the issue.

As you can tell. Smart guides, snap to point, snap to glyph are turned on. The issue doesn't get solved if snapping to glyph is turned off. Quitting and reloading illustrator also didn't work like some other people have said.

Abhishek Rao

Community Manager

Hi @Caitlin_108,

Thanks for sharing the video and providing details about the issue. To help resolve this, could you let me know which version of Illustrator you're using and what macOS version you're on? Also, does this problem occur with all files, or is it specific to one?

To help isolate the issue, please try restarting your Mac in Safe Mode and see if the problem persists. This will help us rule out any third-party applications causing the conflict. Reference: Safe Mode Guide.

If the issue continues, could you also try testing in a new admin local user account? This will help determine if it's related to your current user profile. Reference: New Admin Account Guide.

Looking forward to hearing back from you.

Abhishek

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willd82588806

Participant

I also wish snapping work more like it did in InDesign. Don't understand why they're different.

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ben.bland

Participating Frequently

Here's my case, which might help people in future: I accidentally turned the snap-to-objects option off by typing "Cmd U" ("Ctrl U" on PC I guess) because I was trying to undeline some text (on other applications, that would be the shortcut)!

It took me fully 15 minutes to figure it out, and I couldn't find any mention of the same mistake online.

Doug A Roberts

Community Expert

That's Smart Guides, which the current correct answer describes.

YannisWS

Known Participant

Had this problem once and solved it this way (smart guides was checked off).

Today I again had this, came back here and found out the setting was still enabled.

Did more research.

Smart guides just not working.

$250/year.

Amazing.

J

Jeannette0D44

Participant

Yes this seems to vary by the day. Oh Joy. I just want to move my object in tiny increments but object keeps jumping. I can't even place guidelines always where I want them. What is up?

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the5ivefooter

Participant

Have you checked your snapping tolerance in the preferences > smart guides? Mine was on 0pt and didn't snap. Changed it to 4pt and immediately I started getting results.

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Adorableinnovativedesign

Participant

YOU HELP ME, THANKS MATE, A HUGE THANKS I CANT EVEN TURN OFF MY CAPSLOCK, THANKS !!!!

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Jesseham

Inspiring

I'm on CS3, so don't know for sure, but I think I remember reading that they'd changed the default snapping behavior to require that you hold down a modifier (control, alt, something.. ) to get it to snap to the cursor, otherwise, it wants to snap to the shape...

Or is it the other way around...

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matchandlerAuthor

Participant

hey, thanks for the reply. this doesn't seem to be the answer i was looking for though. first, even if i press ctrl or something, it doesn't help to get it to snap, but aside from that, if it would snap to the shape, it would be perfect. thats what i would like it to do, is snap to the shape. it has been working fine for weeks, and just now, i must have turned off some option, and it wont do it anymore? well, i'll keep on hunting. thanks again.

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Wade_Zimmerman1

Inspiring

In the preferences uncheck select object by path only.

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