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Daté TETEGAN
Participant
January 9, 2014
Question

Shortcut to move, rotate, scale a pattern inside

  • January 9, 2014
  • 7 replies
  • 53830 views

Hi Everyone,

I'm working in the fashion industry where we are creating a lot of patterns and textile designs.

The Adobe illustrator help guide explain the following tip to transfom pattern inside a vector shape without having to move the vector object :

  • To transform patterns but not objects when using a transform tool, hold down the tilde key (~) while dragging. The borders of the object appear to be transformed, but when you release the mouse button, the borders snap back to their original configuration, leaving only the pattern transformed.

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/illustrator/cs/using/WS714a382cdf7d304e7e07d0100196cbc5f-6480a.html#WS714a382cdf7d304e7e07d0100196cbc5f-647ba

It seems this shorcut works only with US and UK keyboard.

I'm using a french keyboard where it doesn't work, probably because there is'nt any key especially dedicated to the Tilde sign (~), and you need to combin multiple keys to get this symbol (Alt GR + the key 2 above the key Z) .

I finally found the shortcut on MAC which is the keyboard key with the britisih pound sterling symbol (£). But not on PC !!!

Can anybody tell me how to get this shortcut on PC with a french keyboard ?

Is there a way to change the shortcut for this very useful option, without having to take care of the kind of keyboard ?

It would be very kind if someone can help me to fix this issue.

Thanks a lot.

Daté

      7 replies

      T
      TMC-Design
      Participant
      January 23, 2025

      Does anyone know what this shortcut is called? So maybe I can make my own shortcut, but I don't know how to find it in my shortcuts.

      Monika Gause
      Community Expert
      Monika GauseCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      January 23, 2025

      It can't be changed.

      U
      user3091088
      Participant
      February 1, 2022

      Thank you very much 

      V
      valerir12226079
      Participant
      March 27, 2018

      Salut!
      I know this question is dated, but here's how I managed to do this in lovely QC

      Select your shape and then get the Rotate tool + Identify your rotation point + Press the Backward accent (accent grave) key and you should be able to rotate the pattern.

      Works for me, hope this helps!

      M
      Marie-Claude D.
      Participant
      May 6, 2019

      valerir12226079,

      Are you on a Mac? I have the Mac French Canadian keyboard and to create the accent grave, I have to press ALT+` so it automatically creates a duplicate of my shape instead of being able to move the pattern. Any shortcut for the French Canadian Keyboard for Mac?

      Thanks.

      Monika Gause
      Community Expert
      Monika GauseCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      May 7, 2019

      Marie-Claude,

      Will the following help?

      French-Canadian QWERTY: Alt/Option+U accent to the left of the Z key (to the right of the Shift key), maybe working without the AltGr, as shown here:

      https://forums.adobe.com/message/10750258#10750258


      https://forums.adobe.com/people/Jacob+Bugge  schrieb

      Marie-Claude,

      Will the following help?

      French-Canadian QWERTY: Alt/Option+U accent to the left of the Z key (to the right of the Shift key), maybe working without the AltGr, as shown here:

      Re: How to access the Tilde key with a French Keyboard?

      Marie-Claude doesn't want to type the letter, but move the pattern.

      Only possiblity is to go to http://illustrator.uservoice.com and make a feature request.

      Or change your system language/maybe even Illustrator language

      Steve Fairbairn
      Steve Fairbairn
      Inspiring
      July 10, 2014

      I use an Icelandic keyboard which uses the > key (between Shift and Z), same as Jacob’s.

      I suppose you know that you can use the Scale and Rotate tools for this kind of work if you want numerically accurate scaling and rotation of patterns? Just de-check ‘Objects’ in the Scale and Rotate dialogues.

      D
      Daté TETEGANAuthor
      Participant
      July 10, 2014

      Yes, i know we can do it this way by double clicking the Selection tool, Direct Selection tool, Scale or rotate tool to open the editing window.

      My concern is to find the accurate way which is to do it directly by dragging the image with the right shortcut.

      But it doesn't exist on windows with the French keyboard.

      Sometimes i don't understand really why a such usefull funtionnality is not available for all.

      The same for Adobe Kuler which is not available on the french version of Illlustrator.

      J
      jmlg12
      Inspiring
      July 10, 2014

      In the last update of Adobe Illustrator CC you will find Kuler Panel in the french version

      J
      jmlg12
      Inspiring
      July 10, 2014

      Hi agree that it's not convenient to switch to US keyboard only to be able to use this shortcut.

      Why not adding this feature in the list of feature you can edit the shortcut in the "Keyboard Shortcut" menu ?

      Thanks

      Monika Gause
      Community Expert
      Monika GauseCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      January 9, 2014

      On Windows you need to switch to US-English language keyboard first. At least that's the case in the German version.

        Jacob Bugge
        Community Expert
        Jacob BuggeCommunity Expert
        Community Expert
        January 9, 2014

        Daté,

        You may try < (just to the right of Shift), or take the time to go through all the keys.

        The following is a list of known equivalents (the French for Mac taken from your OP with thanks).

        Tilde key: UK: ' (just below the @, to the left of Enter, at least in CS6), Icelandic and German: < (just to the right of Shift), French (only Mac): £, Danish: æ (just to the right of L)

        Any new findings will be added to the list so others may benefit.

        My suggesting < comes from a (most likely silly) hope that the same key applies to (most) Continental European (and the Icelandic) keyboards.

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