Illustrator cc 2014 grid snap problem

[dannylelieveld]

Since Updating to the whole cc2014 suite last week, grid snapping in Illustrator has been terrible. Literally Nothing really snaps to the grid.

Does anyone share this problem? Anyone has a solution to this?

And Yes, i've turned off 'align to pixel grid'.

I'm working on a mac with OSX 10.9.3 running.

Thanks in advance!

[BlackhawkNorth]

This is a nightmare......  one of the best functions (STPG) in setting up user templates has effectively been rendered useless.....  big fail that needs sorting asap....

[dannylelieveld]

First of all, I would like to thank everyone for reacting. This has been a great help already.

My problem is not the align to pixel grid problem. It was the first thing I checked myself (which didn't fix the problem).

It is, however, the live rectangle 'problem' or 'bug' or whatever. So in some way I got the help I wanted already, which is nice.

It a shame that live rectangles don't snap in 'live rectangle mode', and that it's an 'always on' function. I need proper grid snapping way more than half-fancy corner options that are included in the vectorscribe plugin I was using anyway.

I still hope someone finds a workaround, how to turn the live rectangles off (and I don't mean the 'expand' trick Monika pitched earlier. It's nice, but cumbersome when working with tons or rectangles in grids).

[jchandler3]

This needs fixed immediately... My head has been on the verge of exploding for days now until I discovered this thread and the Live Rectangle "feature". What a nightmare...

[Alejo Rojas]

My problem goes further. I cannot snap anything correctly, my only method is to zoom to maximum, and sometimes need to use outline preview to by eye. Is very annoying to have to snap 3 or 4 times corners, lines, objects, etc. I guess this is bug. All starts with Creative Cloud updates.

[alistairchisholm]

This massively impedes any type of workflow for laying designs out with Illustrator's grid. How can anyone try to defend it? It's clear to see that this is a bug.

At the very least, we need a way of disabling live rectangles as default for new shapes.

Ideally, Live rectangles would just snap to grid correctly but I understand that it might not be an easy fix, for whatever mathematical complication that is occurring.

I really hope some smart guys at Adobe see this as a critical bug and are able fix this.

[Guest]

Object > Shape > Convert to Rectangle

Converting the rectangle (which is apparently now a "live rectangle" by default) resolved the snapping issues for me.

My Adobe friends, I now have to do 3-4 extra steps to make a rectangle behave the way I need it to (snap to grid). If live rectangles are incapable of snapping, then I don't want to use them by default. I'd strongly prefer a primitive rectangle and convert them to a live rectangle for the scenarios when I find that feature more important than snapping which… is probably never.

[webflowapp]

I agree. I'd rather have the "normal" rectangle by default and the special rectangle as a separate feature.

[metrication]

Agreed, please give us a way to turn off live rectangles by default. This is intensely annoying and totally counterintuitive.

[PXC]

Since we don’t know whether adobe is going to fix this and since there is no option to replace the Live Rectangle with the classic one (plain) by default, I’ve decided to write my own plugin (available for free for personal and commercial use) which imitates behavior of the ‘old’ Rectangle Tool. It doesn’t replace the Live Rectangle – it works completely independent!

My Plain Rectangle Tool correctly snaps to grids/objects/points and correctly aligns to grid/points on resize. Of course it supports the SHIFT and ALT/OPTION keys, Snap to Grid and Smart Guides options. In other words it works almost 100% the same as the Rectangle Tool we know from CC (17.1), CS6 and earlier.

The installation package (zxp) adds ‘Plain Rectangle Tool’ icon into the Ai panel (of curse you can assign your custom keyboard shortcut to it as well)

Note: The Plain Rectangle can be easily converted into the Live one using Object > Shape > Convert to Rectangle

Grab your copy at http://63mutants.com/subc/products/PlainRectangleTool_m01/PlainRectangleTool_m01.php Feel free to share with your friends. It’s completely free.

I’ve also created a separate discussion https://forums.adobe.com/thread/1587587 for the Plain Rectangle Tool. If you have any comments or request please post it there. This plug-in is on its early stage so any feedback would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,

Pawel Kuc

[Fossa84]

I am having also huge problems with the snap since the 2014 update.

Nothing reliably snaps to anything with the live rectangle. It is very inaccurate whether using smart guides, snap to grid or snap to pixel grid.

Could someone please explain if there is a reason WHY the live rectangle would "break" if it would snap to the pixel grid or to any other grid or guide for that matter.
The live rectangle is probably a neat feature but it's all spoiled if it's behaviour is totally random.

[alistairchisholm]

Well said Fossa84. I would also really like to hear an official explanation on this case from Adobe.

[ethan.beyer]

Fossa84     Aug 1, 2014 3:39 AM  (in response to dannylelieveld)   

I am having also huge problems with the snap since the 2014 update.

Nothing reliably snaps to anything with the live rectangle. It is very inaccurate whether using smart guides, snap to grid or snap to pixel grid.

dpidan     Aug 11, 2014 10:24 AM  (in response to dannylelieveld)   

Same issue here - can not snap to pixel any longer. I use Illustrator for web UI design, so this is a deal-breaker!

I would just like to say that I too have been noticing some really frustrating snapping bugs/features. I booted up an old computer with CS6 (pre-point-five-update) yesterday and when I drew a shape that the Smart Guides said was aligned to the page edge, it actually was. I almost fell out of my chair. My current method requires zooming in to 6400% and selecting actual anchors and moving them until they're where I want to be.

No, it's not the end of the world, and yes, as a paying subscriber I wish this was better, and no, I'm not going to start using something different because Illustrator is like an extension of my hand at this point, but again: I do wish this was easily remedied.

I'll admit that I didn't know why in the heck my rectangles had all those new boxes, and I am glad to be able to switch them back to just a simple rectangle - but it would truly be nice to change which sort of rectangle you were drawing by default, as many before me have said.

I came from CS2 to CS5/6 to CC 2013 & 2014 and it seems to me that all these new features have dulled the knife. I'm cool with new features - bring them on - but allowing them to be changed by the user is, in my opinion, an absolute must.

[Joonapuu]

Same problem here. Really REALLY frustrating. Most of my work needs to be done in exact measurements, this just makes Illustrator useless to me..

Are there any good alternative applications for vector drawing? I'm not holding my breath that Adobe will fix this anytime soon, they seem to be living in some weird bubble by them selves after they moved everything to cloud and started charging every month for these beta versions of the software. I am not a happy customer.

[Guest]

Two of my coworkers have switched to Sketch by Bohemian Coding. It looks like a solid app. I'm holding out a little longer; wish me luck.

[webflowapp]

itsclockwork wrote:

Two of my coworkers have switched to Sketch by Bohemian Coding. It looks like a solid app. I'm holding out a little longer; wish me luck.

Illustrator is much faster and more reliable than Sketch for any type of designing (including UI design). Just watch this video: Adobe Illustrator vs Sketch performance - YouTube  The issue we're discussing in this thread is really annoying but saying you'll use a different tool won't convince the Adobe devs to work harder to solve this problem IMO. I'm sure they're really busy trying to find a good solution that will make everyone happy.

[louiesolomon]

webflowapp wrote:

itsclockwork wrote:

Two of my coworkers have switched to Sketch by Bohemian Coding. It looks like a solid app. I'm holding out a little longer; wish me luck.

Illustrator is much faster and more reliable than Sketch for any type of designing (including UI design). Just watch this video: Adobe Illustrator vs Sketch performance - YouTube  The issue we're discussing in this thread is really annoying but saying you'll use a different tool won't convince the Adobe devs to work harder to solve this problem IMO. I'm sure they're really busy trying to find a good solution that will make everyone happy.

itsclockwork is suggesting software that doesn't have the particular issue that this thread is about.  It has its own set of issues for sure, but it does manage to snap to the pixel grid. For the majority of us who aren't drawing thousands of circles on the screen trying to make the app crash, Sketch works great.

[Fossa84]

You do have a legit point there. And actually i really do love illustrator, but it has its weaknesses too.
But i gotta admit, that having tried some other software, whether for illustration, layout or prototyping, illustrator still is the most fluent and reliable. IMO

[Fossa84]

Moro Joona!

But note that you can turn the "live rectangle" to a regular shape from the object menu.
I think illustrator is great (for illustration purposes at least) but i cannot understand some of these bugs.
I'm also considering Sketch for UI design purposes.

[Joonapuu]

Moi Fossa

Turning object into a regular shape is what I'm doing now, but it's just annoying extra step you have to do every single time.

Sketch seems like a good program for UI design, I might look into that, but I still need something for logo design.

Btw, I'm not sure if Adobe actually reads these forums too much, just look at this popular thread, it's like talking to a tree: What about responsive Prosite?

[Joonapuu]

Has it been 3 months since this man sized bug was introduced, and still no fix from Adobe?

Here's an interesting new software if you want to try something else: Affinity Designer - Vector art & design

Haven't tried it yet, but I plan to this evening. Sure it's not Illustrator, but it seems very promising.

[dpidan]

Same issue here - can not snap to pixel any longer. I use Illustrator for web UI design, so this is a deal-breaker! Adding another step (converting from live object) to align/snap to pixel or grid like it did before CC 2014 should not be required. Hopefully Adobe hears the community and addresses the pixel snapping issue soon!

[AllenCobb]

Although there's a lot to improve in the snap-to-grid behavior, one thing that helps preserve some of my own sanity (such as it is) is to make sure that strokes are aligned to the inside of the object path. When the stroke is split by the path (the default) then it's impossible to make an object with a stroke pixel-align (visually) unless the path is an even number of pixels thick.

Unfortunately, pixel-alignment is a tricky area because there are some basic features that can't be supported while alignment is on. For example, should a pixel-aligned object allow strokes that are odd or fractional pixels thick? If so, how should the half-pixels be represented? As whole pixels in the wrong place, or as anti-aliased pixels? Different projects would require different ways of dealing with those issues.

[megdise]

I am also having problems with snapping drawn vector objects to other vector objects on my pasteboard. Even selecting both objects and using the align tool to align them does not work (the objects don't move and remain a fraction of a pixel off) Does anyone know if this has something to do with the "live corners" rectangle issue? Grid is turned off, snap to grid is also turned off.

I have recently reluctantly upgraded to CC and am extremely displeased to find that once again, Adobe has added a bunch of bloated features no one will use (effects > rounded corners worked just fine, thanks), broken things we rely on as fundamental to the program (snapping) and haven't solved problems that have existed for a decade.

[Monika Gause]

Are you working in an RGB document? Is align to pixel grid (this is different then align to grid or align to pixels) turned on?

[megdise]

Hey Monika

Yes, it's an RGB document. As far as I can tell, I have all snap to pixel options turned off but there could be something hidden somewhere I can't find. Nothing I did would allow me to get the two objects to snap together so I had to delete it and make a new object and now I can't seem to replicate the bug. But it's happened several times in different files. It feels as though when I move an object it still snaps, just to a location just left or right of where I want to to go. But it seems to be an inconsistent behavior, making it that more frustrating...