Why doesn't my Free Transform tool work?

[roncurington]

I hate this kind of thing sooo much It will burn up half a day because of some little oversite on my part. I knpw I have usesd the Transform tool many times and with relative aease and straightfordness. Using the shortcut key "E" and clicking on a node /corner of the bounding box and holding down the "Ctrl" key I can distort the object with ease. Only now I find I can't get it to work. It won't take . soon as I let go of the mouse or Ctrl key or both it returns to it's original shape.

I know I have used this tool many, many, many times with no problem. So I'm missing something easy , but I just can't seem to find it. 

BTW I'm running CS6 on a Windows 7 machine.

Cane someone point me in the right direction

[Jacob Bugge]

Ron,

Apologizing for my asking, but could it be caused by the (nature of the) object (symbol/placed image/whatever)?

[roncurington]

Hi Jacob, That did occur to me because it was a placed jpg so I did an Image Trace on it but to no effect.. So I'm guessing the procedure I describe here sounds correct to you

Interestingly enough I did a search on Youtube on the subject and I'm not finding anything on the subject specifically enough. which is weird because it was Youtube where I originally found the procedure. Shortcut key and everything now I'm just spinning my wheels. Like I said this kind of stuff just pisses me off greatly. I'll burn up hours chasing some obscure nuance that I don't remember because it's been 6 months since the last time I was working with it.

Arragh !!! the ravages of old age and a mis-spent youth.

[roncurington]

OK This is new If I click on one of the side or in between nodes and hold down the "Ctrl" key it works like it's supposed to.  I can skew the object or stretch it along its vertical or horizontal axes. OK great But I can't distort it using the corner nodes I can only resize it , And in fact the distort option appears to be gone entirely. Can't find it under any menus or pallets.

[Jacob Bugge]

Ron,

I believe it can be some kind of corruption, either of the current document if you have only encountered the issue there, or of the preferences.

In the former case, you can try to copy the artwork into a new document and see whether that is a cure (you can move artwork some at a time if it fails with everything at once.

In the latter case you can try the list below (I have left out obvious irrelevant parts and the most serious part (reinstallation) because it is dangerous when you have CS6).

THE LIST

If things that should work simply refuse to (all possibilities exhausted including the A) - C) below (and carefully making sure you are performing (all) the needed things)), you may try (the relevant part(s) of) the list 1) - 8 ) below.

Sometimes, (certain) things may fail or stop working for no apparent reason. When the (other) possible reasons/cures fail to work, it may be some kind of (temporay or permanent) corruption, or even some inconvenient preference setting(s), which may be cured with something on the following list set up in an attempt to provide a catchall solution for otherwise unsolvable cases. It starts with a few easy and harmless suggestions 1) - 3) for milder cases, and goes on with three alternative ways 4) - 6) of resetting preferences to the defaults (easily but irreversibly and more laboriously but more thoroughly and also reversibly), then follows a list 7) of various other possibilities, and it ends with a full reinstallation 8 ). If no other suggestions work, or if no other suggestions appear, you may start on the list and decide how far to go and/or which may be relevant.

The following is a general list of things you may try when

A) The issue is not in a specific file,

B) You have a printer correctly installed, connected, and turned on if it is physical printer (you may use Adobe PDF/Acrobat Distiller as the default printer with no need to have a printer turned on, obviously you will need to specify when you actually need to print on paper), and

C) It is not caused by issues with opening a file from external media.

D) It is not caused by other applications (you may close down/disable everything else running, including browsers and antivirus, then try again). There are quite a few usual suspects that may disturb and confuse Illy (job description Adobe Illustrator) so she moves in mysterious ways (even more than usual, some would say).

You may have tried/done some of them already; 1) and 2) and 3) are the easy ones for temporary strangenesses, and 4) and 5) and 6) are specifically aimed at possibly corrupt/inconvenient preferences); 7) is a list in itself, and 8 ) is the last resort.

If possible/applicable, you should save current artwork first, of course.

1) Close down Illy and open again;

2) Restart the computer (you may do that up to at least 5 times);

3) Log out of your Adobe account and log back in;

4) Close down Illy and press Ctrl+Alt+Shift/Cmd+Option+Shift during startup (easy but irreversible);

5) Follow the instructions here: https://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/using/setting-preferences.html#setting_illustrator_preferences. You can also take a backup of the folders in case you want to. Location is mentioned in the article.

6) Move the folder (follow the link with that name) with Illy closed (more tedious but also more thorough and reversible), for CS3 - CC you may find the folder here:

https://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/kb/preference-file-location-illustrator.html

[Monika Gause]

Still not sure about the nature of your object.

Does it work with simple shapes? Because if it does, then it's not an Illustrator issue.