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Inspiring
Mar 29, 2020 9:56 PM UTC
Answered

Problems rotating shapes in Illustrator

Sometimes I start Illustrator and everything is fine. I create a circle....or square and I can rotate like normal. Other times, I can only expand or contract the shape. The arrow option to rotate will not show up. If it is an object that I have placed on the artboard, I never have any problem rotating. It seems to only be shapes I create with the shape tools. I have reset my preferences but to no avail. Thanks for your help.

 

Sincerely,

My Sanity

 

{Renamed by MOD}

SouthernRustCorrect answer
Inspiring
Jun 17, 2020 7:44 PM UTC

ANSWER: I worked with tech support today for about an hour and we got it figured out, so I hope this works for everyone else. I have a 4k display on this computer. I had the set to 250%. Once we changed it to 225%, the arrows came back. You will have to restart Illustrator, but it worked. Hope it works your you!

35 replies

Participant
Sep 1, 2022 7:45 PM UTC

I am having this exact problem now. I have the boxes and all the settings mentioned and the bounding box will show but it wont let me rotate. It is not only on shapes though as this person had, mine is with any object, line etc BUT sometimes it will let me rotate after I try over and over. It is VERY frustrating and costs me so much time. Anybody else having this issue now?

Becka

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Participant
Nov 28, 2020 1:47 AM UTC

What do you mean "I have a 4k display on this computer"? I have been having this rotation problem in Illustrator (I'm also very experienced with this software), and I can't handle it anymore. I just want to rotate a rectangle.

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Participating Frequently
Oct 19, 2020 12:00 AM UTC

This solution worked for me. I'm on a Dell XPS 15 with a 4K UHD screen. Thank you for sharing!

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Participant
Oct 3, 2020 6:34 AM UTC

Yes, changing 4K display setting fixed it for me, too!

 

Thanks for sharing.

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SouthernRustAuthorCorrect answer
Inspiring
Jun 17, 2020 7:44 PM UTC

ANSWER: I worked with tech support today for about an hour and we got it figured out, so I hope this works for everyone else. I have a 4k display on this computer. I had the set to 250%. Once we changed it to 225%, the arrows came back. You will have to restart Illustrator, but it worked. Hope it works your you!

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Participant
Jun 17, 2020 8:17 PM UTC

Holy moly thank you!

Weird seeing my 4k monitor at a different resolution, weird that that was even an issue but thank you for your effort in solving it.

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Inspiring
Jun 17, 2020 8:48 PM UTC

Glad it worked! Out of curiosity, what computer do you have? I'm using a late 2019 HP Spectre x360.

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Participant
Jun 8, 2020 8:21 PM UTC

I am having EXACTLY the same problem. It is also taking my sanity. Did you find a resolution?

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Inspiring
Jun 13, 2020 2:11 PM UTC
I was told to submit as a bug, which I did. Nothing has been done. Over
$200 a year for this program, and it doesn't even work properly.
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Srishti_Bali
Legend
Apr 29, 2020 10:15 PM UTC

Hi there, 

 

So sorry to hear about this issue. I tried but couldn't replicate this issue at my end. We have recently released an update for Illustrator 2020 (v 24.1.2) which contains some stability fixes. If you are not already on v24.1.2, then we recommend you to update to the latest version and let us know how it goes. 

 

Regards,

Srishti

 

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Inspiring
Dec 8, 2020 8:20 AM UTC

Really annoying to draw.. tryied to set to 225% display settings for 4K display... ok, now I can scale better, but still cant use sorner rounding.. it just rotates!!! when it will be fixed? Is there any idea?

 

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Inspiring
Mar 31, 2020 1:38 PM UTC

I have discovered that even though the rotate arrow doesn't show up, I am still able to click and rotate if I am in the area where it normally would be. This is definitely a bug.

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Anna Lander
Inspiring
Mar 31, 2020 2:22 PM UTC

send please a bug report here: https://www.adobe.com/products/wishform.html

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tromboniator
Community Expert
Community Expert
Mar 31, 2020 5:41 AM UTC

Have you tried the usual remedies of restarting Illustrator/rebooting your computer?

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Inspiring
Mar 31, 2020 1:11 PM UTC

I sure have.

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Participating Frequently
Mar 30, 2020 10:49 PM UTC

Seems elementary but check what tool you have selected:
Make sure you're in the Selection Tool, and not Direct Select Tool when rotating?

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Inspiring
Mar 31, 2020 1:24 AM UTC

https://gyazo.com/46b0a515a3df2356d6beec9920371ee2

 

https://gyazo.com/afea20bb809e0dd5313c05cd3a604e47

 

Hopefully you can see these. I'm using the correct tool and I show the differences between shapes and objects.

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Participating Frequently
Apr 1, 2020 2:20 PM UTC

I see now, see it's not working, and you have exhausted all the other options.

1. Trash preferences

2. Restart/Reboot

3. Reinstall APP

Report as bug final option:

https://www.adobe.com/products/wishform.html

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