Pencil tool and other problems

[apseudes]

I have become increasingly despondent using Illustrator and am at the point of ditching it and finding an alternative. Very soon after starting a task - very simply just inking over scanned pencil drawings to create figures for taxonomic publications (new species etc) - the system seems to jump magnification spontaneously and the pencil tool becomes unusable by insisting on being a line-segment tool. The keyboard also becomes non functional. I spend ages trying to restart the computer to get Illustrator back to normal again - only have it repeat the wholed damned process after a short period. I have an Acer Aspire C24, wired keyboard, wired mouse and WACOM tablet. Help please!!!!

[Monika Gause]

Which system exactly? And which version of Illustrator?

Can you please tell us the hardware specifications? Especially the graphics card

Are there other applications running?

Is there more than one monitor?

How large is the document?

How large is the template image?

Where do you save files?

Does it get better when you turn off live preview?

[apseudes · Accepted solution]

Hello Monika,

I had the same problem with my previous laptop and a stand-alone CS4 version of Illustrator. I narrowed the problem down to either Windows 10 or the new small WACOm tablet (and or pen). When I started using my old A3 sized WACOM tablet and pen this morning the problem has not re-occurred. It could be that the newer pen is damaged or Windows doesn't like the newer tablet driver. Thanks for responding. Cheers, Graham.