I'm no engineer, but it looks like bad RAM to me... GPU/CPU preview would show you which. ... View more

Perhaps it wasn't only Magnet causing your issues.. do you have any other cursor, click, wondow managers installed? Or do you have any other continually running backround apps? If you boot into Safe Mode (hold shift when booting), are things better? ... View more

Bless you. Thanks! ... View more

I don't fully understand "get anchor points on an image". By "image" do you mean a raster image?   For placed raster images, an easy workaround is to select the image and `Object > Envelope Distort > Make with Mesh` - 1 row 1 column. Then you can use the Free Transform Tool with the Persepctive distort.   Any native vector object or group will work the same with the perspective distort function of the Free Transform Tool. ... View more

Ahh, yeah watch those Wacom drivers. They can be problematic. I always keep 1 older version driver backed up so I can reinstall the old driver when a new driver causes issues (which is actually not that rare). I've lost count of how many times over the years i've reverted Wacom drivers due to issues 10 minutes after installing one of their updates. They are stellar at hardware.. but not as solid at sotware sometimes. ... View more

"Normal" is realtive. For the sake of file integrity I tend to prefer more files rather than more artboards. Lose 1 file with 30 artboards.. you've lost 30 designs. ... View more

I've found disabiling Apple's "Ink" also helpful - If the MacOS is Catalina or lower. (Ink was deprecated at Catalina) I haven't experienced what is being described, but there's not a lot of info in the OP. ... View more

Effect > Stylize > Feather - perhaps? ... View more

Blend modes and transparency in Illustrator can cause layers to merge in order to maintain appearance. If the goal is a 1:1 layer transfer, you want to not use either, then export writing layers. You can always add blend modes and transparency back in Photoshop once you have the layers there, but it's fairly difficult (if not impossible) to "split" layers which have been merged. ... View more

Pretty straightforward as long as you avoid any blend modes or transparency in Illustrator. ... View more

The outline is comprized of two paths - the outer shape, then an inner shape counter (or hole).   Option 1 - If you use the Direct Selection tool (white arrow), you should be able to click directly on the inner path and then delete it. this will leave one path for the shape.   Option 2 - Select the object and choose Object > Compound Path > Release. This should "break" the compounding and then allow you to select and delete the inner shape. You may need to also ungroup after releasing the compiund shape.   I could absolutely be incorrect here, but I beleive "Convert To Shape" is designed to convert to rudimentary shapes - rectangles circles, triangles, etc. It's not designed to create "Shapes" for any random path... again, I could be incorrect about that. It's a fairly newerish feature and I haven't really had any need for it as of yet. ... View more

A Pattern Brush would appear to be more efficient. ... View more

hmmm... Oddly enough the above works just fine - and as a link with no need to expand - at least in CS6. I'll need to test in v29.   Works as a linked file in v29 as well.   Untitled1 - just basic .ai file with the text "http://www.example.com" - that's all. Saved as .ai (2020) Untitled2 - Place Untitled1 - Save As PDF - Untitled3 (using the default settings) Open Untitled3 in Acrobat, link is clickable.   Are you ensuring the "Preserve Hyperlinks" box is ticked when saving/exporting as a PDF?    How is the URI text formatted? With or without "http://" - although my testing shows the "http://" appears to be irrelevant.   Is the URI text outlined? If the text is outlined here - I outline the text in Untitled1, place into Untitled2, save as PDF -- this fails and links are not made clickable in the PDF.   So, it would seem there's a need for the text to be live text, and not outlines. ... View more

To the best of my kowledge, there's no way to "join" paths on two seperate, closed, shapes. ... View more

Path overlaps are necessary if shapes are to be separated and closed. Two closed shapes can not share a single path. The only option is to overlap paths on a comon side.   ... View more

For something as simple and straightforward as your sample, I would..   Use 1 color high contrast. There's no reason you couldn't change the Photoshop image to be a solid black rather than the red. Trace using the "Black and White" setting and it will avoid some of the common anti-aliasing used to try and retain softer edges. The "color" presets all seem to assume more anti-aliasing is necessary. Image Trace, in general, real shines when the raster is large and as high contrast as possible.   Attached sample uses the old Image Trace 1, not the most recent update to that feature (v2) ... View more

It is also feasible that "Legend" or "Mentor" are related to badges. I have a a lot of badges related to answer and solutions. ... View more

By "format", do you mean a Character or Paragraph Style?   The + at the end of a Character/Paragraph style name in the panels indicates there are overrides - things which are different than the style. Therefore Illustrator is ensuring it's not changing anything it shouldn't - and then adding the + as a visual indication that not everything in the text matches the style settings.   For example.. if you have a paragraph set as "Style 1" and within that paragraph, you've changed a couple words to make them bold or italic. Since bold and italic is not part of the paragraph style, they are overrides, and the + will show.   You can clear overrides in the Character/Paragraph styles by Option/Alt clicking the style in the appropriate panel. Doing this removes all overrides and resets everything to match the style settings. Without the Option/Alt key, clicking a style name reset everything to the style settings except anything which is already designated as an override. ... View more

No. It didn't change. It's always been the single value in Illustrator - at least since CS6, if not earlier. It's both in InDesign. Native and effective. You may be remembering that. ... View more

If you place text on it's own layer, you can scale other layers then address the text placement.   If text were to *not* scale with other object, you'd have to address all the text placement anyway. ... View more

Document Info set to show Linked Images via the panel menu : the resolution there is the effective PPI.   As Monika points out, it'll be the same value as the Links Panel (effective). Main difference is the screen real estate needed to show the data. ... View more

Perhaps.... You know you can link an .ai file into another .ai file... I don't work with this a whole lot. And I don't do a lot of hyperlinks in .ai files.. but this might work, or at least be something to test...   After linking, if the link is then embeded, the link is effectively "expanded". So, the linked .ai file gets unlinked and its contents become a part of the open document, just like anything else in the document. Basically, it is as if you copy/pasted one file into another. Just without copy/paste steps.    Since the "clickable" part of url strings is a function of the PDF export and Acrobat. This should allow the export to see the url string like any other url string and therefore generate the "click" with the export.   This would allow you to have one master file and use links until you are ready to output one of the many files containing the link. THat way, if the original url string changes it would be updated in links. You would simply need to embed the link, then Save As/Export to PDF. ... View more

That makes sense.. I changed the icon... then after posting the above I noticed the name was "somethingBEE_1234".. threw me off... and had to search to figure out how to change it back. Seems ANY profile editng may cause a "random screen name" to be generated (and used).    Kind of annoying I couldn't change it back to the original, but few will notice an extra _   Interestingly enough, my activity here stopped back in ~2012/2013 due to the initial implementation of this "community" software.. man was it bad then... ... View more

but. now my screen name has changed randomly after posting that.... odd... and couldn't change it back to the original becuase it was "in use" had to use a new screen name (although it's very similar). ... View more

"Legend" may mean an inactive or former Community Expert.   I was a "Community Expert" for a number of years. Then my activity stopped for several years... and the title changed to "Legend".  ... View more

I just tend to avoid all blend modes other than Multiply and Darken. Blend modes, really just change colors, that's all - sure they can be a quick, easy, way to change colors, especially for multiple objects - nonetheless, that's all they do.   You can create the same effect in CMYK file by merely using a color to transparent gradient with a "Normal" blend mode, rather than a white to transparent gradient set to "Screen". ... View more

Photoshop 20180103.r26 x64 Mac OS 10.10.5 -- this still happens. I thought it was due to some auto-backup or some CC cloud junk. It is annoying though. ... View more

Actually what seems to have worked here is to launch the "Adobe Application Manager" in the Utilities folder and NOT the Creative Cloud desktop app. The Application Manager app appears to just forward to the Creative Cloud desktop app but from there I updated, yet again, .... and it does appear that it finally killed the update notices. Of course, they may reappear in the future.. but at least for now the menubar notice isn't there for the first time in a couple weeks. ... View more