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Question

Cannot remove black dialogue box

Forum|Forum|10 months ago
March 21, 2025
4 replies
533 views

Have Illustrator 29.3.1. When I use the Measure Tool, a black dialogue box appears with the Message "Calculate area of selected shapes Use the selection too to select the shapes first." Nothing that I have tried will removed this box from my screen. It blocks the toolbar unless you move the toolbar, and then if you try to use the Measure Tool again, it moves with it.

Bug

R

roberts14213377Author

Participating Frequently

Hi, I disabled the Tool Tips/Rich Tool Tips as you suggested and restarted Illustrator and verifed that the changes held, but still get the same result.

A

Anubhav M

Community Manager

Hello @roberts14213377,

Thanks for confirming. Could you try running Illustrator under a different administrator account (Windows / macOS) and checking if it helps?
If the problem persists, please try the following steps and share your observations:

Close all Adobe applications
Remove Illustrator using the Creative Cloud Cleaner Tool (https://adobe.ly/3EfBW9r)
Reinstall Illustrator using the Creative Cloud Desktop application (https://adobe.ly/4cbHWfU)
Relaunch Illustrator

Looking forward to hearing from you.
Anubhav

R

roberts14213377Author

Participating Frequently

Hi. Ok, I signed out of my account and signed into another account. I opened Illustrator and opened an existing file and when I used the Measure tool, the same black box that reads "Calculate area of Selected Shape. 1/2 Use the Selection tool to select the shapes first".

I then uninstalled Illustrator, restarted my PC and then re-installed. I opened an existing file and had the same black box appear, that could not be removed. Then I created a new file, thinking that the older file might have been corrupt, but the new file also exhibited the same black box when I used the Measure tool.

Conrad_C

Community Expert

The picture below is how it looks on my computer. From comparing that to yours, my guess is that on your computer, the text in the rectangle has been scaled up so that the two buttons that are supposed to be at the bottom have been pushed beyond the bottom edge, so you can’t click them.

This might be caused by the user interface scaling setting in Windows. Check system settings / Display and see what the display scaling percentage is. If the percentage is too high, it can cause the effective UI resolution of the display to drop below Illustrator system requirements. If it looks like that’s the cause, set the UI scaling percentage back to 100% and experiment how high you can set it before things start getting cut off.

If my explanation is correct, it’s unfortunate that the black rectangle can’t automatically scale itself up to account for higher UI scale percentages that some people might need for accessibility reasons. It shouldn’t cut off buttons like that.

R

roberts14213377Author

Participating Frequently

My display scaling is at 100%, so this did not correct the issue.

A

Anubhav M

Community Manager

Hello @roberts14213377,

Could you try disabling Tool Tips / Rich Tool Tips in Illustrator's preferences to see if it helps?

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Anubhav

R

roberts14213377Author

Participating Frequently

Windows 10 PRO

A

Anubhav M

Community Manager

Hello @roberts14213377,

Would you mind sharing a screenshot of the entire window along with the version of the OS installed, so I can better assist you?

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Anubhav

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