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actiondv
Participant
February 17, 2020
Answered

Can't finish previewing. File stuck in outline mode

  • February 17, 2020
  • 3 replies
  • 9693 views

Illustrator 24.0.2

Working file when suddenly switched to outlive view.  Now I cannot get it back to preview.

Mac Catalina, Macbook pro, 16gb ram

 

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer Ruairi5FA4

I suspect the .ai file has been corrupted.  The same happened to me when designing a large banner.  Illustrator showed an error message when I attempted to exit outline mode.

 

I saved a copy of the problem file as a PDF, which worked correctly - did not get stuck in outline mode etc.  Problem resolved.

3 replies

Participant
September 22, 2022

Had the same issuse a few times. What works for me is pressing CMD/Ctrl + Z back a few steps then selecting Preview in the View tab.

Ruairi5FA4Correct answer
Participant
August 12, 2021

I suspect the .ai file has been corrupted.  The same happened to me when designing a large banner.  Illustrator showed an error message when I attempted to exit outline mode.

 

I saved a copy of the problem file as a PDF, which worked correctly - did not get stuck in outline mode etc.  Problem resolved.

Participant
July 28, 2023

I had the same issue, this solution is the only one that worked. Thank you.

Michael Bullo
Community Expert
Community Expert
February 17, 2020

When in Preview mode, from the Illustrator menu choose…
View > Outline

 

When in Outline mode, from the Illustrator menu choose…
View > Preview

 

The keyboard shortcut Command/Control + Y will toggle you between both modes

actiondv
actiondvAuthor
Participant
February 17, 2020
Neither key stroke or options from menu work to get back to preview mode.
Rob Bennettc +1.604.837.6690SKYPE: actiondv
Michael Bullo
Community Expert
Community Expert
February 17, 2020

When odd behaviour creeps into an Adobe program a great starting point to fix the problem is to reset the preferences.

 

https://helpx.adobe.com/au/illustrator/using/setting-preferences.html

 

Press and hold Alt+Control+Shift (Windows) or Option+Command+Shift (macOS) as you start Illustrator. The new preferences files are created the next time you start Illustrator.