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Participant
March 7, 2022
Question

Illustrator on Windows and 4K monitor, outline and other lines are way, way too thin.

  • March 7, 2022
  • 1 reply
  • 1301 views

Using Illustrator on 4K monitor is ridiculous on Windows at least. I use Windows scaling at 150% or 175% and while UI elements like menu bars and icons are fine, strokes of things like bounding box, guidelines, outline view (ctrl+Y) are way too thin. It's 1px wide I believe, and on 27 inch 4K monitor it's ridiculously thin. I really can't understand how this is a thing still (unless I can't find the setting). I couldn't find a way to make all these lines thicker independently from the UI in general. If I make UI scaling larger, menus and so on become way too large. Ability to adjust line width of all the guiding things should be A MUST. Preferably it would automatically increse if Windows scalings is more than 100% (automatic adjustment maybe could have a checkmark if you don't want it).

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1 reply

Dave Creamer of IDEAS
Community Expert
Community Expert
March 7, 2022

I have a similar set up without issue. They appear to be 0.5 pt, but large enough for me to see. 

Did you play with this setting:

 

David Creamer: Community Expert (ACI and ACE 1995-2023)
Participant
March 11, 2022

These settings only change stuff like anchor points and handles it seems, all the lines stay the same. There really should be an option to make it 2px instead of 1. It's very difficult to work on something that requires precision, snapping things together is not easy with only 1px lines. I work in outline mode a lot when I need precision, but with such thin lines it's really frustrating. 
Are you using Windows? I'm considering maybe switching to Mac for design work if it handles scaling better, have yet to check if it does. I'm starting to be really disappointed in Windows, first color management not working everywhere, now this (that said I don't know if it's Adobe's fault or Windows in this case).

John Mensinger
Community Expert
Community Expert
March 11, 2022
quote

I work in outline mode a lot when I need precision, but with such thin lines it's really frustrating.

 

You won't find Outline mode any different on a Mac. It sounds like you may working "by eye" as opposed to using Smart Guides, which I'd recommend regardless of the view mode.