Expert: Kevin Stohlmeyer - 7/21/2010

Question
QUESTION: My text tool cursor along with other tool cursors is white. It makes knowing where you are on the paste board very difficult unless you roll the cursors over a dark background or manage to place the text tool cursor directly on some black text and then you can tell where it is. I waste a lot of time just trying to figure out where I am on the page. Running CS4 on a new iMac.

ANSWER: Hi Phil,

Try going to Preferences>User Interface and changing the settings. It may be set to a very light setup.

Thanks

Kevin



---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Changing the brightness doesn’t affect the cursors just the interface. Let me try to do a better job of explaining the problem. If I were to type the words ‘vanilla chocolate’ on a new page in Illustrator then click away and then decided to add the word ‘and’ between the two existing words with the text tool it’s very difficult to insert the cursor (which is white) properly between the two words. Unless I zoom closely on the text and move the text cursor around the general area of the words its hard to know where the cursor unless I happen to role the cursor across the black text and then I can finally see it. I often have to switch to the direction selection tool and grab the anchor point of the text and then quickly change to the text tool so that I stand a better chance of placing the cursor where I want it. This also holds true for other tools like the lasso tool or the scissor tool. They are white and you just don’t have a good notion as to where they are on the page. Is there any way to change the color of the cursors?

Answer
Hi Phil,

Thank you for explaining in more detail.

What you are describing is a normal function of Illustrator. Unfortunately, there is no way to change the icon colors in Illustrator.

An easier option would be to change to outline mode, which will show all your text in black and make it easier to click inside.


Thanks

Kevin