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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!
1 Correct answer
It's not a bug.
New rectangles are always live rectangles. Live rectangles cannot be aligned to the pixel grid because it would break them.
What you need to do is convert your live rectangles to paths (using the command in Object > Shape) and then align them to the pixel grid (by checking the option in the transform panel). You can do this for all of them at once.
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Align to pixel grid is in the transform panel.
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Yea that is turned off. Another example of this behavior: I just tried to snap a box to the edges of a pasteboard and it inconsistently snapped to a different place every single time– everywhere but the actual pasteboard edge.
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This is insane. I just spent over an hour researching this and finding out live rectangles don't align to guides or Smart Guides.
And now I realize I have to convert every rectangle into a traditional rectangle instead of a live rectangle. I think live rectangle should really be its own tool anyway (a different item in the toolbar).
Anyway... Any sort of preference setting or way to create traditional rectangles by default would be great.
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Use the Polygon tool and specify 4 sides.
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That is not a bad idea, and I know this isn't your fault, but we used to be
able to use the rectangle tool...
+1 for a Live Shapes tool and a Normal Shapes tool/
On Thu, Aug 21, 2014 at 6:58 PM, Larry G. Schneider <
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It's a good workaround, but of course it only makes squares, not uneven rectangles. And unfortunately the "split stroke" alignment bug still applies.
I think instead of two tools, I'd prefer just an option in the Transform Panel (or somewhere else that's convenient) to turn Live Shapes on or off.
I'd also like to be able to select some or all anchors on an object and click a handy button to "Move selected anchors to nearest whole pixel."
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So I was having an issue with this same problem and so I called Adobe about it. We worked out what is the culprit.
There is a box under the advanced tab that needs to be unchecked when you make a new document. This is defaulted on the web template, but it isn't in the print one. As soon as it is unchecked it seems to work ok.
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But it doesn't work. Meaning if you have that box checked then everything should snap to a whole pixel (like it used to do in previous versions of Illustrator). Right now it doesn't seem to work at all.
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Aaah I see. I have unchecked that box before (wondering how it came back as checked) but didn't realize it was a default setting on the web template. Thanks for that info, Evan.
That seems to be one half of the snapping problem. The other half seems to relate to the live rectangles. Getting them to snap to anything unless you expand them to "dead" rectangles is almost impossible. Other posters have suggested a workaround that involves creating a live rectangle and expanding it, turning it into a "dead" rectangle but this requires several steps most users seem to feel is unnecessary considering it used to work just fine.
These two issues aside, does anyone else feel snapping is much more inaccurate than CS versions?
Adobe: This seems like a bug as it requires several steps to do a basic task like snapping a rectangle to your pasteboard bounds. Is this something you are addressing?
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The dumb thing is that "live" rectangles will snap to pixels if you click the option in the transform pallet. But constantly doing that is a step backwards since it worked in previous versions of illustrator (even CC which had "live" rectangles).
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As my previous speaker said, no way to work in Illustrator properly in the moment. Same issues here.
I also tried to subtract a logo from a form and this happens (fyi: the subtraction works fine in Indesign).
@ADOBE: Please fix this issues.
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Oy that's weird. Did you check to see if either of those objects are set to align to pixel grid in the transform panel? That seems to create all kinds of inadvertent problems...
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A work around!
I work with an illustrator who hasn't had this problem because of the way he works.
He sets his grid to 1px and then snaps to grid.
works like a charm. At least as far as dropping pixel perfect rectangles down everytime.
I hope that helps
Luke
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Unfortunately, this is the same grid setup I use in my projects. This does not demonstrate the unwanted behavior that changed with live rectangles. It still happens with a snap to grid set to pixels. So you can see what we're talking about:
1. Take your example document and draw a rectangle. X,Y,W, and H will all be on whole pixel values.
2. Now resize the rectangle by dragging any side or corner and you will note how it does not snap to whole pixel values, but starts introducing fractions of a pixel.
But if you convert the shape to non-live rectangle (Object > Shape > Convert to Rectangle), resizing does snap to whole values. Man, I hope they fix this soon.
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This is so incredibly obnoxious. I just installed Adobe CC the other day and was wondering why nothing was snapping. I thought I was going crazy.
It would be great if Create Live Rectangle was an option in settings that could be turned off.
For now, this is what I'm doing to speed up my process. I'm just setting Expand Rectangle as a keyboard shortcut. Does anyone on here know anyone at Adobe so that we could link them to this thread?
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I was contacted from Adobe about this issue. Apparently they saw this thread, and wanted me to show them my workflow. So they are aware of the problem, but it seems it takes a long time be fixed... This really sucks, since Adobe has a kind of a monopoly on this type of software (in the industry i'm working on anyway), and this bug is really slowing me down.
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This is not jus issue of snapping to Px Grid, but snapping in general. Snapping & aligning during resizing & moving does not work properly.
The issue on image below is happening all the time. (On the image there are two rectangles aligned while drawing using Smart Guides, Outline preview, 6400%.)
I "developed" something, which might be called a WORKAROUND. It is based on previously mentioned discovery of expanding that weird Live rectangle to the ordinary Dead rectangle, which we all know & love. This is my way of thinking:
- Has to convert Live to Dead…
- …using keyboard shortcut.
- All the easy-to-hit shortcuts are obviously already taken.
- I connected "Ctrl + Shift + Q" with the expand command (Object > Shape > Expand Rectangle)
- This is not really convenient because of unnatural pinkie-finger gymnastics.
- I converted "Ctrl + Shift + Q" to the "Win + Y" (which I considered as easy) using Autohotkey. (http://www.autohotkey.com/)
This is the most elegant way I found. If you are interested in that script, you can find it here [Dropbox - Ai-KillLiveRectangle[Win+Y].ahk]
If you dont't want to download the file, the srcipt is simple:
#y::
Send ^+q
[Update:18-09-2014|22:33]
There is something really rotten deep in the Ai. Scissors Tool and Rotate Tool is very hard to target precisely too. (Not even rectangles.)
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This is interesting. So I created a doc in illustrator CC (non-2014) with a rectangle with a rounded corner effect.
I open it with CC 2014. Can't align it to grid no matter what I do. wtf!
If I copy that rectangle and paste into a new doc, it pastes aligned to the pixel grid.
Also, if I now open that original doc with non 2014 after having saved it in 2014, I have that same can't-align-to-pixelgrid problem.
Just thought that was interesting.
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Align to pixel grid is an object based attribute. You have to turn it on in order to use it.
A live shape can't be aligned to the pixel grid. You have to convert it to a normal path in order to be able to turn on align to pixel grid.
You need to check your objects after handing them from file to file or from version to version.
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I don't really understand the difference between a live shape and a normal path. Why should there be a difference to the user? If you create a shape with a pen tool, all the behavior should be the same as when you draw an object with an object tool.
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Can anyone from Adobe offer us any news on this? Is it even filed as a bug that you are looking into?
Every time I open Illustrator, I am met with frustration because of this issue.
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So they just updated the whole creative suite today and this freaking bug is still here. They just added 3 useless features to illustrator an yet we are unable to draw a bloody snapped to grid rectangle? Come on Adobe!
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Hello Everyone,
With the latest update 18.1 of Adobe Illustrator CC 2014, we have fixed the snapping issues with Live Shapes. Please upgrade to the new version of AI and let us know if you are still encountering any snapping problems with Live Shapes. If after the update, snapping doesn't work correctly then please clear your Adobe Illustrator 18 preferences and then verify your workflow again.
Thanks,
Dhirendra
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Hi Dhiendra!
I'm still noticing small alignment discrepancies. This is now on a microscopic level though.
To replicate...
- Try laying out approximately 10 randomly sized rectangles on a grid
- Use the Free transform tool to position and stretch all rectangles onto the same w h x y
- Zoom in and view a corner in wireframe mode and I'm seeing all of the rectangles out of alignment
But this is great. Thank you. This is a huge improvement.
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Hello Alistair,
Thank you for trying this out. Will it be possible for you to attach a short video showing the problem? This would really help us isolate the issue.
Thanks!
Dhirendra