Skip to main content
Participant
May 14, 2021
Answered

Change bounding box to fit anchor point instead of shape

  • May 14, 2021
  • 2 replies
  • 3376 views

I'm having an issue that only seems to have begun recently. Previously, when I scaled a line path, the bounding box for the path would be set according to the anchor points on the line - in other words, if I have a diagonal straight line with two anchor points, the bounding box would have the two anchor points as the two opposite corners in a rectangle.

 

Now, however, it seems that the bounding box is set to conform to the overall shape of the path. In other words, if you change the stroke thickness of the path, the bounding box also changes size. You can see this in the picture I've attached - the blue shows the current bounding box, and red shows what the bounding box should've been set to and what it would have been in the previous settings.

 

The new setting is not great for my uses as I have a lot of line drawings where lines are meant to connect at the anchor points, not at the visual boundaries of the path itself. This means that if I need to scale a path's size proportionally, I will have to set the path stroke to 0 first, otherwise it will scale the line using the edge of the stroke as the reference point, instead of the anchor point like I need.

 

I'm not sure if this was a feature that's always been there that I unknowingly triggered, or if it's something that was changed with one of the most recent updates to Illustrator. What I'm wondering now is if there is some way to change the bounding box settings back to what they previously were. Setting the path stroke to 0, scaling a path, then changing the stroke thickness back to what it was isn't the worst solution, but it will slow things down a fair bit and I would like to avoid that workaround if possible.

Correct answer bawkbawkmoose

UPDATE: I'm going to leave this comment here as my "resolved" flag as I can't edit or delete my posts. For anyone who stumbles across this same issue in the future, my problem turned out to be that Use Preview Bounds was turned on. If you're having the same issue go to Edit > Preferences (or just Ctrl K) and go to the General tab, and make sure that Use Preview Bounds is unchecked.

2 replies

Participant
January 23, 2025

Thanks! This was driving me crazy!!!

bawkbawkmooseAuthorCorrect answer
Participant
May 15, 2021

UPDATE: I'm going to leave this comment here as my "resolved" flag as I can't edit or delete my posts. For anyone who stumbles across this same issue in the future, my problem turned out to be that Use Preview Bounds was turned on. If you're having the same issue go to Edit > Preferences (or just Ctrl K) and go to the General tab, and make sure that Use Preview Bounds is unchecked.

barnardco
Participant
September 26, 2022

You just saved me. Thank you for this. I have no idea how this even got turned on.