Expert: Kevin Stohlmeyer - 8/7/2008

Question
Not really a question....just some info I discover...

I was suddenly unable to resize objects in Illustrator with the mouse, using the shift key, so I googled and found this link:

http://en.allexperts.com/q/Adobe-Illustrator-1027/2008/3/Illustrator-Object-Resi...

Someone else had the same problem. (I do not have a Mac, I have a PC.) I called Adobe and this was the solution:

Under the VIEW tab, the line after SHOW RULERS needs to read HIDE BOUNDING BOX (meaning the bounding box is showing). That solved the problem. The Adobe tech said it "happens all the time." It occurred to me how this happens all the time - the keyboard shortcut for SEND TO BACK in QuarkXpress is the same as the one for HIDE BOUNDING BOX in Illustrator. If someone is used to using Quark, then it's no wonder it happens all the time...just a simple mistake of using the worng keyboard command with the wrong application. In case the gentlemen who asked the question in the above-mentioned link did not find a solution, this may help him. It has made my life easier!

Thanks, Kevin, for being an EXPERT and helping us all out.

Nancy

Answer
Thanks for the link Nancy. I get this question all the time and yes hiding the bounding box is a common error people run into. The link you sent is actually a previous answer from me.

However Macs do have a known glitch that cause the shift key to suddenly not work. If you were able to read his follow-ups, he did have the bounding box showing up, it was an error with his shift key not being able to proportionately scale. Restarting the application fixed the error temporarily. Until Apple addresses this issue, it is something we all have to deal with from time to time.

I work with Adobe developing their software and this is a bug using Adobe products with a Mac OS. It is not an issue with Windows users.

Kevin