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Inspiring
July 27, 2025
Answered

The marquee zoom no longer works in Illustrator

  • July 27, 2025
  • 3 replies
  • 1003 views

Forever - and I mean FOREVER - I've been able to hold down the command key and the space bar to get the MARQUEE ZOOM tool which I use ALL THE TIME. Now suddenly - I guess in the hopes that it justifies the absolutely ridiculous 20% increase in the price of CC in a market where graphic artists are getting replaced by ADOBE'S AI - the marquee zoom either no longer works at all, or Adobe pulled another Adobe and decided their terribly inefficient version of the zoom should now be the default and in order to go back to the way it's worked SMOOTHLY and FOREVER - we have to come to the site here in the hopes someone can tell us what is happening and which magic boxes we need to check or uncheck to get it back to working the way IT'S ALWAYS WORKED. I swear if they gave out awards for companies who make life hard for their customers - Adobe would win every freakin' year.

 

Anyway, is there a kind soul in the room (not as frustrated as I am) who knows what happened to the MARQUEE ZOOM option that can help me? I would much appreciate it - thanks in advance.

Correct answer Ton Frederiks

If you turn off Animated Zoom in Preferences > Performance and use Spacebar Cmd it should work.

3 replies

Participant
September 8, 2025

Again, Ton Fredericks' "correct answer" has not worked for me.  

Dave Creamer of IDEAS
Community Expert
Community Expert
September 8, 2025

If you are on a Mac, you also need to disable the Spotlight keyboard shortcuts. 

 

David Creamer: Community Expert (ACI and ACE 1995-2023)
Ton Frederiks
Community Expert
Community Expert
September 8, 2025

Or use them in the reverse order: Space Cmd instead of Cmd Space

Ton Frederiks
Community Expert
Community Expert
July 28, 2025

"Forever - and I mean FOREVER - I've been able to hold down the command key and the space bar to get the MARQUEE ZOOM tool which I use ALL THE TIME. Now suddenly - ... - the marquee zoom either no longer works at all"

Suddenly is suddenly since 2020 when animated zoom and GPU perfomance became the default.

It has been announced at that time as a new feature.

Cmd-spacebar was already hacked by Apple for the Spotlight search shortcut.

Inspiring
July 28, 2025

Tom - you have to understand a lot of us do not work for Adobe, so it is not worth our time to "update" every year when Adobe "upgrades" (saying that tongue in cheek) because they are not adding anything worthwhile. "Upgrading" one program often means "upgrading" 2 or 3 others so they can all still work well together. The era of game changing features has been over for a good 15 years (at least) so it makes more sense (to a lot of us - I think the majority) to simply set up a system that works for our own business and ride it as long as possible. I get that YOU want to be up to the minute because you have no choice if you want to be the Adobe "community expert". There was a time when I had to be that guy too. But even back then - I had two systems set up on different computers... one to keep up with all the (unnecessary) "upgrades" and one set up for working on actual graphics jobs that was reliable. 

 

So far as Adobe "announcements" - they spam me 3 or 4 times a day trying to make another sell. You honestly believe my life revolves around Adobe like yours?  You are the anomaly - not the norm.

Ton Frederiks
Community Expert
Community Expert
July 28, 2025

That's ok, if you want to work that way, but don't complain that things "suddenly " changed when they changed 5 years ago. You noticed how easy it (sometimes) is to get an answer here if you missed a new feature.

Ton Frederiks
Community Expert
Ton FrederiksCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
Community Expert
July 27, 2025

If you turn off Animated Zoom in Preferences > Performance and use Spacebar Cmd it should work.

Inspiring
July 27, 2025

Thank you, Tom. Fast response and works now - appreciate it. Hope Adobe gave you a nice raise with all that extra $$$ they're pulling in from us suckers too lazy to switch to whatever Affinity's draw program is called.

Ton Frederiks
Community Expert
Community Expert
July 27, 2025

I don't work for Adobe, Adobe employees here have an Adobe logo next to their name.