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Participant
November 6, 2016
Answered

Show / Hide Center Point / Anchor Point

  • November 6, 2016
  • 6 replies
  • 49926 views

Hello,

In the new CC 2017 for Illustrator I can't seem to enable my objects to always show and display the center point. Why was this moved from the Attributes tab?

Correct answer Ton Frederiks

Chose Show All from the Atributes Panel, or double click a couple of times on the Attributes Panel Name Tab (it's collapsed).

6 replies

Participant
July 22, 2025

Select view menu>Smart guide line (ctrl +U)

rockshowphoto
Participant
March 22, 2021

I'm having this same issue, and I've found that when I hit Command-E (or menu View > View Using CPU) then the center anchor points appear. However, when I toggle back to View Using GPU, the center points are gone again.

 

On a 16" MacBook Pro 2019 running Mac OS Big Sur 11.2.3 and Adobe Illustrator 25.2.1. 

Known Participant
March 22, 2021

Yeah, I have that as well.

27" 2019 Retina 5K iMac | Radeon Pro 580X 8 GB

Very useful workaround...thanks! 

 

 

Known Participant
January 21, 2021

I am finding that the behavior of 32 years of Illustrator use has changed in regard to the center point. It used to be I could easily toggle to outline mode from preview and the center point was visible on every shape in my settings. Now, it only shows when the object is selected. The persistent center point makes nesting shapes on centers easy when dragging from center point to center point in line mode.

 

I currently have center point toggled on in attributes, but I only see the center point in either outline or preview mode and that makes hitting the target [the center point] in any shape difficult from a usability perspective. Is there some other setting I'm missing that would allow the old behavior of having a center point persistent in line mode? 

Participating Frequently
February 22, 2021

I'm having the same problem too. In wire frame mode, none of my shapes' centerpoints are visible until I click on them. This used to be standard when switiching to wire frame.

Met1
Legend
February 23, 2021

Mine are on by default although I can't find a pref that does this. 

If I create a box and turn off "show center" and then draw a new box, it has show center turned on (which I think is a little counter intuitive, if I just turned them off wouldn't you think I'd want them off for the next box?)

To turn them all on, select all, toggle show center in attributes panel.

If you have Smart Guides turned on, even if the centers are hidden when you drag over, it will highlight and display "center" on screen (you do have to know approx location of center).

MarkSR
Inspiring
April 18, 2019

I'm have a similar issue where all the center points of guide-objects have lost their center points.  I've checked the Attributes panel and it looks correct and the View/Show Edges is turned on, but all boxes and circles (which have been converted into guides) have lost their center-points.  

Participant
January 22, 2017

I am trying to use indesign 2017 and I can't find the attributes panel or any way to create a center point in any boxes when I am trying to center it on the page. I was able to do this in Indesign 2015 when I would move an image box, the center point would automatically appear. What happened and how do I get it back?

Ton Frederiks
Community Expert
Community Expert
January 22, 2017

This is not the InDesign forum.

This topic is about Illustrator.

Ton Frederiks
Community Expert
Ton FrederiksCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
Community Expert
November 6, 2016

Chose Show All from the Atributes Panel, or double click a couple of times on the Attributes Panel Name Tab (it's collapsed).

Inspiring
January 21, 2017

I am having the same problem in CC 2017 for Illustrator. It shows that the center point is active in the attributes panel but no center dot shows.

Ton Frederiks
Community Expert
Community Expert
January 21, 2017

And is also View > Show Edges (Cmd H or Ctrl H) active?