_How do I rotate the view in Ai?

[Hugh Betcha]

_How do I rotate the view in Ai? - seems simple - can't find it....

[Jongware]

Perhaps that'll be in the up-and-coming Illustrator for iPad!

(-- oh wait -- that's never gonna happen, since Illy supports Flash output.)

[Guest]

@ JET in regards to why I would like the rotate display option in AI:

I routinely work on complex files in AI that involve diecut pieces, where one or more panels are upside-down in the template based on how the piece will be folded and glued after cutting. Being able to rotate the display, as opposed to actually rotating the art itself, would be a huge benefit in those cases.

[JETalmage]

I've been doing that for decades and never pined for a screen rotation feature.

Separate individually-sized pages for each panel, all right-reading.

An assembly page for the whole design.

Make Symbols of the contents of the pages that need to be rotated.

Place one Instance of each of those Symbols on the assembly page, rotated as needed.

Perform edits on the unrotated pages.

JET

[Guest]

If I was creating the file myself, sure. But I'm working on customer-supplied art, already laid out in our templates but needs some modifications. I'm not about to go through all of that...

[Kurt Gold]

Without much doubt there are plenty of illustrators who have been doing that for decades as well, James.

Still they might prefer being able to use that specific artboard rotation. They have their reasons for it and I am one of them, though I know workarounds like the one you described.

No need to slate the request.

[rawlogic]

It makes sense to rotate the monitor if we're drawing on the monitor. As you know, these are available, but expensive. The stylus/tablet is cheaper.

With a tablet, we want to rotate the canvas. This makes sense, though the most skilled artists practice their strokes from all angles. (Try rotating your wet oil painting on the easel).

Still, for us less practiced artisans, we want to rotate the canvas. We don't care how much the programmers have to work to rotate the canvas. For us users, it is simple.

Why would we ever want to go through numerous steps to reproduce something similar, when rotating with our tablets is but a single swipe of our finger tip.

Now we know that all of the programs in the Adobe suite have separate origins, but they should have similar interfaces. If Photoshop and InDesign has such a feature, it seems like a large gap that AI doesn't.

Don't rotate the menus. It's not necessary.

[JETalmage]

It makes sense to rotate the monitor if we're drawing on the monitor. As you know, these are available, but expensive.

You're stating my case. Simply rotating the monitor would be the closest simulation of having one of those expensive touch-screen tablets you're talking about, that you can rotate to any angle you want in your lap.

We don't care how much the programmers have to work to rotate the canvas.

Speak for yourself. I certainly do care, because I'd much rather the programmers work on any of a very long list of much-needed improvements that would benefit all users. And I don't want to pay for a feature I consider downright silly in every version upgrade I buy. Nothing is free.

JET

[JBN64000]

I agree with you about rotating the art board, and it should be able to rotate without the menus flipping. That would be rediculous. lt should rotate just as easy as a vector rectangle.  I use an lntuos Wacom with a touchring that can rotate the canvas in Photoshop. ln Illustrator, having no such option is a strange thing. Afterall, it's called "Illustrator", and I do freehand drawing just like I always have on paper and canvas. I often do straighter lines in a vertical motion, so when I need a straighter than normal horizontal line, I will flip the paper to draw it with a vertical motion. lt is easier to pull my elbow back than to draw the line while controlling the natural arc that comes with moving my arm horizontally. It really would speed things up to have canvas rotation in Illustrator.

Of course, I'm expecting jet to make a fool of himself and say change the grid or, better yet, use the line segment tool or draw it with the shift key, OR draw it and move it, duh, it's a vector. But those tools have their places, and none of them are in my freehand Illustrations. Sometimes in art, a line needs to be straight, but not perfect. I understand the anxiety some feel when an Illustrator feature they do not need may get priority over their personal list of needed features and tools, but to say that a feature is completely unnessecary is, to me, a childish and anxious attempt to get what they want before others do. Similar to the way a child may gripe and put down their sibling because of the envy and worry he feels when  his brother may get what he wants from their mother before he does. ln other words, they should stop before they speak and think for a moment in order to realize their motive for wanting to do so.

Apparently, "speak for yourself" was said hypocritically, because to call a customer's request or any valid question or curiosity pointless and a waste of Adobe's resources (that apparently should be sacrificed for certain people for their subjective gain if I read correctly) is truly blind to the usefulness that many would find to be true, and to the value it would add to Illustrator.          

jet, I'm sure the AI team will adhere to your specific needs before you pass, so please, do not worry yourself too much. Personally, customized arrows is truly a waste of time. But I'm sure it's useful to a handful of some kind of graphic artist and may be useful to your "designs."(surely riddled with subconscious evidence of inner, frustrated nerd syndrome) Millions of people successfully designed and illustrated without computers for hundreds of years, so please, hold back your rants that belittle the value that Adobe has to offer and belittle the curiosities of other customers. They are useless to others and Adobe. For you, I'm sure it lowers your blood pressure (that self esteem you think you feel is in fact fake, so it doesn't count) to rant uselessly on others threads when a path doesn't do what you think it should be doing, but you should do everyone a favor and save it for your own threads and try not to color outside of the lines and into others' posts. I think you need a vacation from the screen and some quality time with some real art, like you used to have, I'm sure.

Ta Ta,

JBN

P.S.

Hope there's at least a book written in reply. Aww, you are so Smart! With so much ridicule, too! I would love to post it on my main AI forum where we have started a thread with rediculous, valueless, and...rude posts. There's some from you! That's why I came here.

It's okay, I'm sure someone will speak up and say how much you've helped them and that you're misunderstood in some way or another.

Some people stand behind their decisions no matter what. Similarly, you don't apologize. That's cool. Whatever. I will apologize, however..

I'm sorry I called you a nerd.

I mean wow, name calling? Egads! On an Adobe community forum? Gosh...

Douche.

[eja34]

You're really only considering a very narrow segment of the Illustrator user base. A feature like this would save a significant amount of time and help prevent user error when running out production on dozens of pieces of product packaging. For example, a backer card for a piece of clam-shell style packaging is often printed one-sided and folded in half to create a front and back. In this instance, a designer is frequently needing to rotate the art 180 degrees depending on which side of the card they are working on. Doing this manually by selecting all elements, then performing a 180 degree rotational transform works just fine, but for one, it is slow compared to having a built-in canvas rotation function – saving even minutes per piece can save hours over the course of several dozen pieces. And second, it leaves the designer wide open to small errors that tend to arise. The more frequently each element is manipulated in any way, the higher the chance that element will in some way get screwed up. For instance, a designer may select all, then rotate to work on the other side – however if a small element's position is locked, the designer may not notice. Of course it would be the designer's fault for not paying complete attention to detail, but we are all human beings who make errors, and I just don't see any reason not to implement a feature that would make a professional designer not only more efficient, but less prone to mistakes, especially when that feature is present in two out of the three core Creative Suite applications.

You also speak as if an illustrator or designer's comfort in their workspace is some kind of luxory for spoiled, whiny "artsy-fartsy" types. Truth is, these are PROFESSIONALS who depend on their workstations and software to put food on their tables and support their families. It is paramount for these professionals that their workflow be as streamline, efficient and comfortable as possible. Consider that before you go crucifying an entire community of users.

[Catseman]

JFC what tablet peed in your cheerios. I've never read a more obtuse and bizarre set of complaints about a really useful tool. Are you bad at drawing and using real drawing tools or what? You seem to have some major beef with the tech that has nothing to do with how obviously useful they are. Maybe there's some artist you work with you have a bone to pick and blame it on the devices or what? Jeez.

[MorituriMax]

Catseman, sounds like you're unloading a pretty stupid amount of whinging yourself.  If you don't need such a feature, keep your comments to yourself.

[Catseman]

I do need such a feature, had a bunch of brochures to do today where half the crap was upside-down and made it a pain to work on without the rotate function this thread is about.

I was just amused by this goober's rant about people using graphics tablets. Was like reading someone mad about Illustrator existing because they like to do typesetting manually with tape, glue, and an exacto.

[borsn]

What if you're using a MacBook Pro? lol

[An Elephant]

This feature is hundred times more useful than 'unembedding image' and other new features in cc.

[Guest]

Personally I wouldn't go that far... from a prepress perspective Unembed Image is going to be a huge timesaver (as would rotating the canvas), two features that have been in InDesign for quite a while now.

[JohnWilliams713]

Here's a hack to do it if you're using a Mac. Open the file in Preview (you may have to rename it to PDF) and rotate it, then save. You should see the changes reflected in Illustrator.

[Guest]

This really isn't the same thing; if you're going to actually modify the file, why not just rotate everything natively in Illustrator?

The beauty of how InDesign and Photoshop rotate the view is that they are not modifying the file, only the display. This is a long-needed feature in Illustrator as well, and I'm disappointed that it didn't make it into AICC. 

[Tim Donahue]

I am yet another designer who does a lot of packaging and being able to rotate the view would be extremely helpful to me...and there are times when I have account people hover over my computer to ask me to make small changes on the fly. It's time consuming to rotate discrete elements, make changes, rotate back  and position them properly. Vote me in for this as a feature on future releases.

[GoMariusz]

Also, I think that is a great lack of respect for the creators. Rotate view Dunkcja simple tool like the PS should be a priority in Ai.

[hilltopapts1]

The way I rotate view 90 degrees is

1. Select all "Control A"

2. Object rotate; Object>Transform>rotate

3. Cut; "Control X"

4. Open New file

4a. change the width and Height

5. Paste "Control V"

It takes about 4 more steps than it should but it works

[GoMariusz]

@ : hilltopapts1

— Your advice does not make sense in practice for me. That's what you're saying relates to the transformation of objects, and that I think everyone can do that?

[hilltopapts1]

As stated in the beginning, there is no way to rotate view in AI or rotate the canvas in one step (which would be so nice). So, what are your options to view a Canvas +/- 90 degrees. The only one I am aware of is to rotate all objects, then copy and open a new file with the height and width reversed, then paste. In essence your canvas has been rotated +/-90 degrees by "transformation of objects". As you state this may not be practical but it is an option that "everyone can do".

[Monika Gause]

You could place one Illustrator file into another one (linked) and rotate it there.

Or you could use symbols.

[GoMariusz]

You could place one Illustrator file into another one (linked) and rotate it there.

— In this way, I can of course create your work, but in this case it is a separate document and such control swatches, symbols, etc. paterns. is difficult and not synchronized. That rocky road to the creator and to the uphill.

Or you could use symbols.

— The symbols do not use the linked graphics; (eg background in graphic symbols do not use the linked; (eg psd, such as a different file. Ai) ;(

[GoMariusz]

In Illustrator lacks such a solution. Not only for developers using brushes Wacom hardware type, but also for the people who design the packaging and other publications to be odrócone after printing and folded sheet. For me it is one of the major drawbacks of this tool.

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Best Regards!