Illustrator 28.3 guides question

[Dave Amason]

Is there a way to force Illustrator to display guides only as gray dots regardless of whether I'm in Outline or Preview mode? Currently the guides in Preview display whatever color I have them set to in Preferences. Also, is there a way to make the dot pattern coarser? Right now the dot pattern is so fine I can only see the dots when I zoom way in. Zoomed out, they basically looks like lines.

Thanx!

[Kurt Gold]

You can set a custom colour for the guides in the application preferences. Doesn't that work for you?

As for making the dotted guides coarser, I think currently the only way is to switch to the CPU preview in the View menu. If you are in GPU preview mode instead, the dotted guides are indeed displayed pretty diffident.

[Dave Amason]

Yeah, changed the guide color in the preference pane to black. That helped a bit. As for the CPU vs GPU, that makes a bit of a difference. I submitted a feature request for the ability to (at the very least) give the ability to adjust the coarseness of the dot density to make guides stand out from artwork lines.  An ability to vary the width of the guides might also give some differentiation options.

I went back-n-forth with tech support on this, and in the process, realized that guides pulled from the rulers have a coarser dot pattern than objects (e.g. a rectangle) converted into guides. For those things, the dot density on the lines is so tight, it almost looks like a line. You have to zoom way in to see the dot pattern.

[Scott Falkner]

Put the guides on their own layer then Command (Mac) or Control (Windows) click on the eyeball for that layer in the Layers panel.

[Dave Amason]

Been using this and it  helps a bit. Being able to control dot density would be best, but for now the workarounds will do. Submitted a feature request for this.

[Brad @ Roaring Mouse]

The coarseness of the dots is related to dot pitch of your monitor. For instance, on my iMac's Retina screen, the dotted lines are VERY tiny (as they are rendering at only 1 pixel x 1 pixel with 3 pixels of space between (CPU) or 2 pixels x 1 pixel eith 2 pixels of space (GPU). Even in Black, these are both tough to see. However, If I move that same document to my external normal-pitch monitor, the dots are much more visible, even at 1 pixel x 1 pixel with 2 pixels between)

I, too, have wished for some time that there was an option to scale up these on high-pitch monitors. I remember adding my voice to such an idea, but i can't find the link right now.

 

[Dave Amason]

Yes, this is *exactly* what I'm talking about. Sounds like the hi-rez screen options on various devices, while good for some things, are getting out in front of some of the program's basic functionality. Let's hope the devs take note of these concerns.