What do the Illustrator cursor symbols mean?

[hnicholl]

I am having trouble finding a guide to the cursor symbols in Illustrator. By this I mean the hover symbol that the cursor turns into when over different sections of the artboard. I have had a lot of trouble with the Text Tool, and I need to know what the cursor symbols mean but I can't find any guidance on this. Is there a guide or cheat sheet somewhere? Perhaps similar to a keyboard shortcut guide?

[Kurt Gold]

I'm pretty sure it could be clarified if you were showing the cursor symbols that are causing trouble (whatever you mean by "trouble).

[hnicholl]

They include a little black pointer with paragraph text, a little black pointer with a squiggle, a white pointer with a dotted square and others. There's a bunch. (I tried taking screenshots but the Windows keyboard commands switch my cursor to other Illustrator tools instead!). Basically, there are a lot of them I need to figure out so a cheat sheet would be really  helpful. 

[Kurt Gold]

You would have to use a screenshot application that is able to capture the screen including the current cursor.

I guess there are such apps available for the Windows OS.

[Mario Arizmendi]

I think you need to learn about how the text tool works in illustrator

please see this

https://helpx.adobe.com/search-results.html?q=text%20tool&facets_fields=%5B%22applicable_products%22...

[pixxxelschubser]

@hnicholl wrote:

"… a little black pointer with paragraph text …"

Do you mean the "Touch-Type-Textwerkzeug"? (German name)

Touch Type Tool

[chanaart]

Q
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*From my CLOUD to YOURS*

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Chana
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[pixxxelschubser]

@chanaart,

Your post seems incomplete?

What did you want to show us?

[hnicholl]

This is one of them pixxxel_schubser but not the ones that are giving me difficulty. It is a little black pointer with tiny tiny lines that make up a paragraph. What's odd is that when I seach 'Illustrator text symbols' through Google, it gives me all the symbols contained in glyphs and fonts, not the hover cursor symbols/images that I see when I'm trying to work with the Text tool in Illustrator. (I likely have my search terms incorrect?)

Someone else who posted here is also right: I am a student, trying to learn Illustrator's tools, and it's daunting. A cheat sheet of the hover symbols/images such as the one that pixxxel_schubser just posted would be super helpful. When I click with my mouse with the wrong hover symbol engaged, the text tool does crazy things, so I need to know what those hover symbols are. I'm using Ctrl Z constantly.

[pixxxelschubser]

@hnicholl wrote:

"… a little black pointer with a squiggle …"

And this is the Width Tool

[Monika Gause]

Make new text object: either click or click and drag

Put text inside the shape

Put text on the path, looks like so:

Icons look different, but this is how it works: https://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/using/creating-text.html

[Jacob Bugge]

h,

I believe this is an obvious case for a feature request with a link to it here and a link back to this thread,

https://illustrator.uservoice.com/

If they are really troublesome a better term may be curser symbols.

[pixxxelschubser]

@hnicholl,

did you read Monika's post on page 2?

(And please - use only the answer button directly below the original post. Otherwise this thread will "unreadable" because of nested nested answers inbetween.)

[hnicholl]

This is one of them pixxxel_schubser but not the ones that are giving me difficulty. It is a little black pointer with tiny tiny lines that make up a paragraph. What's odd is that when I seach 'Illustrator text symbols' through Google, it gives me all the symbols contained in glyphs and fonts, not the hover cursor symbols/images that I see when I'm trying to work with the Text tool in Illustrator. (I likely have my search terms incorrect?)

Someone else who posted here is also right: I am a student, trying to learn Illustrator's tools, and it's daunting. A cheat sheet of the hover symbols/images such as the one that pixxxel_schubser just posted would be super helpful. When I click with my mouse with the wrong hover symbol engaged, the text tool does crazy things, so I need to know what those hover symbols are. I'm using Ctrl Z constantly.

[Monika Gause]

With your dscriptions nobody will be able to help you.

So if you are not able to take screenshots: please draw the cursors.

Please describe step by step what exactly you're doing and what exactly is happening. And again: screenshots help.

Also: did you read the documentation?

Obviously there is no cheat sheet. So why not try and create that yourself?

[ moved to the end of the thread by moderator ]

[Jacob Bugge]

h,

While waiting for the cursor symbols sheet or the end of days, whichever occurs first, you may take photos of the troublesome ones and post those instead of screenshots, maybe collecting them in one image (you can use Clipping Masks).

[Ton Frederiks · Accepted solution]

[tromboniator]

Is it this, which appears upon clicking the red overset text annotation?

If so, clicking and dragging will create a new text box containing a continuation of the text.

Peter