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FrankieGS
Inspiring
February 20, 2023
Answered

How to set 'constrain proportions' as default behaviour in Illustrator?

  • February 20, 2023
  • 3 replies
  • 3679 views

Hi,

I've been using Photoshop and learnt to constrain proportions WITHOUT using the shift key as that is the default behaviour.

Now that I am using Illustrator it's the opposite way round, and I keep forgetting and having to undo lots of work as I've distorted things without noticing when I resized them.

 

Is there a way to control an object so that it will only drag scale proportionally (and not having to keep applying the setting)?

And / or is there a way to set a preference so that drag scaling will automatically be constrained?

Thanks

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer FrankieGS

Great, your answer works for me "You may also use the Free Transform tool (default shortcut E), turn on the Constrain button on the Free Transform widget and drag one of the four corner handles."
Thank you Kurt.

3 replies

Kurt Gold
Community Expert
Community Expert
February 20, 2023
Met1
Legend
February 20, 2023

doesn't work on text, and constrain isn't sticky after using another tool...

My lack of knowledge obviously but I don't know what Free Transform does that you can't do with the Selection Tool.

I use E to get to Perspective Distort and Free Distort quite a bit, and gotta look up the merits of Free Trans...

Kurt Gold
Community Expert
Community Expert
February 21, 2023

Unlike the Selection tool, the Free Transform tool, for example, does respect single selected anchor points, leaving deselected points unchanged.

 

It should work with type objects as well. Not sure why it doesn't work for you.

 

Met1
Legend
February 20, 2023

Shift key...

CarlosCanto
Community Expert
Community Expert
February 20, 2023

I don't think there's a way of constraining proportions without pressing Shift, that feature in Photoshop is not present in Illustrator.