I can't pull guides from the ruler

[Guest]

I am using CS4. I can open a document with guides already in it and manipulate them. When I try to pull down a guide from the ruler nothing happens. Guides are shown, cyan in color not hidden, not locked. I have covered all the rest of the bases and am truly stumped! What am I missing?

[Jesseham]

Are you trying to drag them onto a locked layer?

[Guest]

nope

[Jesseham]

Just one document, or any document?

If any, have you tried deleting your preferences?

[Guest]

If I open a document with guides in it I can manipulate those guides, but I cannot create new ones. If I create a document or open one that does not have guides I cannot create guides. Yes I have deleted "Users/user/Library/Preferences/Adobe Illustrator CS4 Settings/en_US/Adobe Illustrator Prefs"

[Jesseham]

I'm all out of questions.  Anyone using CS4 have any thoughts on the matter?

You restarted illy after deleting the prefs, right?  If you restart illy while holding command-option-control-shift as it starts up, it will for sure delete the preference file(s) that are prone to corruption.

[Guest]

I have already tried that and still no guides. I am guessing my only option is to reinstall Illustrator and see if that works, I just didn't want go through that waiting again. Thanks for you help though.

[Wade_Zimmerman1]

duderii wrote:

Yes I have deleted "Users/user/Library/Preferences/Adobe Illustrator CS4 Settings/en_US/Adobe Illustrator Prefs"

You did this wrong that is why nothing happened, as it was probably suggested you have to deleted the Adobe Illustrator CS4 Settings folder and everything in it, the whole folder first of course quitting Illustrator.

Again the folder itself plus its contents, but first quit Illustrator.

[Guest]

I quit Illustrator, deleted the entire Adobe Illustrator CS4 Settings folder, emptied my trash, restarted Illustrator and still no guides. Now what?

[Wade_Zimmerman1]

Hit:

Command ;

one time!

[Guest]

I understand we are trying to cover all of the angles here but I know how to use Illustrator. I have CS, 2, 3, and 4 at home and use them for freelance and have been using CS, 2, 3, and now 4 at work and use them all day long. I said in my original post that they are NOT hidden, NOT locked, they are the default Cyan in color not white so I can't see them. I have already tried that! It wasn't untill I installed CS4 at work that this is occurring. We have a network licence and have it installed on 4 other machines and NONE of them have this problem! No offense but can we quit the amature I've never used this program before answers and think of something else?

Maybe I should add that I personally have been using CS4 at home for about 6 months now and the other CS's since 2003.

[Judy_Arndt]

I wonder if it's possible that a third-party extension or application is interfering. I don't know if AI will run in Safe Mode, but it might be worth a try to test.

To restart in Safe Mode (from Mac Help)

"Hold down the Shift key immediately after the startup tone, and release when you see the progress indicator (looks like a spinning gear)."

[Wade_Zimmerman1]

There are only a few things that can effect the workings of

Illustrator that trashing the preferences will not fix.

In other words it is not a setting.

They are third party plug ins, Fonts, conflicts with other preferences

not that of Illustrator, conflicts with other software like Microsoft

Entourage or Quicken, haxies

and systems corruption. At the moment these are what I can think of

does any of these fit you situation?

Here are things you can try remove all third party plug ins.

disable your fonts,

create a new user and log into that and see if the problem goes away

if it does go away you have a corrupt user preferences folder

do an archival reinstall of your system

update all Microsoft software

disable other conflicting software

Uninstall Illustrator then of course reinstall.

Uninstall all haxies

Repair the perissions.

Check to see if the disk is ok with disk warrior.

Clean out the font cache files.

[Guest]

Thank you, finally some real answers, I will try those and see!

[Jesseham]

Yeah thanks.

[cs3ster]

I have the exact same problem in CS3 Illustrator and am wondering if you were able to solve this problem or if anyone else knows? The vertical and horizontal guides don't work. They are visible when I drag them from the ruler but disappear when I release the mouse. I've tried deleting the preferences folder, opening with ctl-alt-shift keys and a re-installation of Illustrator from disk.

[Harron_K_Appleman]

View | Guides | Show Guides

[mr._3473]

I was having the same issue. I realized I was in the "trim view" (view>trim view) and unchecked it. I had 50 guides all hiding.

[FrankieGS]

Perfect, that was a quick solution  

[tmsoft]

I just had your exact problem and I didn't realize guides were put into your highlighted layer as I was use to photoshop.   So highlight a layer that is visible in your layers view and then create the guides and they'll be added to your highlighted layer.  This layer needs to be unlocked and visible.

[Mike77Learning]

tmsoft is correct! I was having the exact same problem, then I realized that I did not have the layer selected, once I actually selected the correct layer, i could create guidelines from the ruler!

Solution: Select the Layer you are working on to see/create new guidelines from the ruler!

[M-M-L]

I had the same problem and I realised InDesign won't let you create guides if your View Treshold is more than 5% (Layout > Ruler Guides).

[Edu Couchez]

Three years later still with that... even this "view treshold" that suppose was useful in the 90's when computers were slow. But burying that option in the preferences menu, between hundreds of parameters is a complete waste of time and health (as all Adobe apps out there -except for Photoshop-). But hey... welcome to Adobe way of life.