Mistaken use of Control-Y (CTRL-Y) to Redo

[scubacat154]

I recently thought that I lost hours of work (in Adobe Illustrator) when I accidentally used control-Y (CTRL-Y) to redo something after I used control-Z (CTRL-Z) to undo a change. When I used control-Y, a white background with only fine outlines of my work remained. After trying to use control-Z (to undo my mistaken use of control-Y), and finding that it did absolutely nothing to resolve the problem, I began to experiment with the remnants of the work.

I selected the entire image (which was only fine lines), used control-C (to copy the selection), then opened a new document and pasted the contents using control-V. Like magic, all of my work was on the new document - details, colors, everything! I can only theorize that the original work was not really lost, only hidden in a way that I was unable to recover on the original document.

Wondering if anyone else has a solution for the mistaken use of control-Y in an Adobe Illustrator document.

[Larry G. Schneider · Accepted solution]

Cmd(Ctrl)-Y is the keyboard toggle for Outline View. If you had used the same combination again in your original file the view of everything would have returned (as you found when you moved it to a new file with Preview active).

[carolynn82235216]

DOOOOOOOOOD. Ctrl. for. the. win.

[shafint9895665]

Iam new to Adobe as a whole so what is outline view

[Doug A Roberts]

outline view hides appearances and shows just the paths that exist in your document (or layer).

[Larry G. Schneider]

As Doug has said it hides the appearances. If you have used AI long enough you will recognize it as the original working mode for AI.

[Barb Binder]

Ctrl Y is the shortcut for View > Outline (and back to Preview)

Ctrl Sh Z is Edit > Redo.

[vandanp21805972]

My Ctrl+Y key not work properly. Pl. share another option.

Thanks & Regards

[Monika Gause]

vandanp21805972  schrieb

My Ctrl+Y key not work properly.

"Not work properly" means exactly what?

Doesn't work at all?

Does something different?

You're on a PC?

You know what it should do? Or did someone just tell you to press this?

You can always go to Edit > Shortcuts and assign to it whatever you want.

Also: when was your last restart (of the computer)?

And maybe the preferences need a reset.

[Ton Frederiks]

Wondering if anyone else has a solution for the mistaken use of control-Y in an Adobe Illustrator document.

It sounds silly, but the only real solution is to learn how to use Adobe Illustrator.

Viewing modes | Adobe Illustrator CC tutorials

[jane-e]

Keyboard shortcuts work whether or not you like them and whether or not it was your intention to use them.

[shirleys31278974]

hold control and press the eye on each layer and everything will show again

[malcolms97644040]

In Photoshop 2018 this toggles the Proof Colors option. To untoggle the options, go to the View Menu in the top toolbar and click Proof Colors to uncheck it if it's already checked.

[Monika Gause]

malcolms97644040  schrieb

In Photoshop 2018 this toggles the Proof Colors option.

But this is the Illustrator forum.

[omniaa23741486]

what is the answer exactlz _ i canät seem to find it , iäm having the same problem 

[KazVorpal]

It sounds like you do hours of work on a single layer, the one you were able to copy and paste to another document, instead of preserving most of what you do by using multiple layers, smart objects, adjustment layers, paths, et cetera.

Or at least you did way back when you wrote that.

Since this came up in search results, I'm going to write a suggestion for anyone reading it: 

Constantly editing a single layer and counting on Undo for any revisions is generally a mistake, for multiple reasons:

Editing like that is called a Destructive Workflow

• By using it you are forced to give up all subsequent edits when you undo.
• You also lose your undo chain when you save and close the file.
• Oh, and if you ever learn Illustrator, its design team are blindered about undo, and won't even let you see your edit history like in Photoshop, so you have to undo blind. 

Instead, use a Non-Destructive Workflow:

• As a simple starting point, any time you're going to make some radical change, you can simply hit control-J to make an extra copy of the layer before it's altered. You can end up with a small stack of layers that show major steps in the process of creating the finished product. But you can gradually move on to steps that give you a lot more power to control previous changes you made to the image, as follows...
• If you keep each new paste or image on its own layer, you then can revise each of those layers separately, preserving most of what you'd done since, and can "undo" after reopening the file.
• And layers can usually be turned into "smart objects", which then secretly keep an original version of that layer, with all of the changes you make to it preserved separately, so you can turn off a change or even adjust it later.
• You can't erase bits of a Smart Layer normally, but you can create a Layer Mask that lets you conceal parts of the layer EXACTLY as if you were erasing them. You "paint black" on the mask and where you paint becomes invisible, and you can then unerase parts by painting white over the black.
• You can also change all of the visible layers at once non-destructively, with "adjustment layers" that alter what every layer under them looks like. 

[Monika Gause]

This is about Illustrator, so Smart Objects and Layer masks are not a thing.

There are opacity masks though.

[KazVorpal]

Ugh, I hate that about Illustrator...the lack of undo history. In a way ALL layers in Illustrator are smart objects. But the lack of layer masks is kinda dumb, they'd add more ability to change the vector graphics in an organic way.

I often pull things into Photoshop instead, thanks to limitations like those, whenever there won't be a scaling issue or such with the final product. 

Odd, I was doing a photoshop search when I hit this result. I'll just leave it up here for photoshop users who drive by via Google, if it's okay.

[defaultb0sfti1tmatf]

Oh Jesus..it happened to me for the third time when I accidentally changed the keyboard settings while working..thanks for the post! I could manage to get back everything as it was before.