Behavior Modifcation

Unlike children, Illustrator's behavior is easy to control. You can choose Edit/Preferences from the menu and dictate how you want Illustrator to behave. Your preferences are retained until you either experience a change of heart or someone sneaks onto your computer and messes them all up.

Some of the preferences are way too techy for me and I avert my eyes when I see them. I trust that the programmers who determine the defaults know tons more about that stuff than I do. Far be it from me to argue with the folks at Adobe.

Some of the prefs that I won't mess with include:

Plug-ins and scratch disks (my cat and I know all about scratched disks) and plug-ins make my bathroom smell clean and fresh. Every once in a while I try to better myself by reading up on scratch disks and such, but I always drift off mid-paragraph and start dreaming about warm cookies and milk.

Version cue and files: "Use Low Resolution proxy for linked EPS" is the default, and that's okay with me. There's nothing worse than having those high resolution proxies thinking they can link stuff all over the place.

There's a whole decision box dedicated to determining the Appearance of Black in the type. Inasmuch as I have trouble telling the difference between black and navy blue socks, I don't lose much sleep worrying about how black the black text is. Adobe offers both 100% black and Rich black. Decisions, decisions.

There's also a check box where you can turn Japanese crop marks on and off. Just imagine the hijinks that would ensue if we accidentally had those Japanese crop marks activated!

The preferences that I do take more than a passing interest in:

• Use Precise Cursors. Most students prefer not to have precise cursors. Regardless of whether you are using the paint brush, pen tool, or pencil, your precise cursor is just a boring X. (but in its defense--it is nicely precise). If you have precise cursors turned off, depending on what tool you are using, your cursor may look like a brush, a pen or a pencil, Students seem to find these life-like icons more comforting. Warning: if you have precise cursors turned off, but you have the Caps Lock on, the evil precise cursors take over. So if your beloved pen looks suspiciously like a giant X, look to your Caps Lock.


• Scale strokes and effects. If you draw an object that is 3 inches in diameter and then shrink it down to 10% of its original size, you need to have this preference checked. Otherwise, the object will be tiny, but the stroke will be humongo (same thing with effects like drop shadows.) If you have it checked, the strokes and effects shrink proportionally with the object.


• Units and Display: Change general Units to inches to points to pixels and back again as much as you want. But, don't change the Stroke or Type from points to inches. It's simply an unreasonable thing to do.


• Guides and Grids: I used to make the mistake of thinking that I was changing the preferences for my guides, only to accidentally change the grid prefs instead. If you take the time to read, these preferences are very easy to control.
  
• Smart Guides: I love smart guides, but some people find two aspects of them distracting--object highlighting and construction guides. You can turn these off in Preferences. They are actually very useful for drawing lines at perfect angles, but it's like watching a laser light showing when there are a lot of lines involved.

Play around with the preferences until you get Illustrator in sync with your personal rhythm--it doesn't hurt anything to experiment around a bit. It's fun and not nearly as dangerous as experimenting with drugs. If you get things totally out of kilter and can't remember how they were before you started messing with the preferences, no problem.


Unlike the rest of us, Adobe Illustrator can always revert to back its virgin state. You can delete the preferences.

To delete the preferences:

First, you must close Illustrator. Then, click Start on your desktop and choose Search. Click "All files and folders" and if it is your first time, click "more advanced options," and check "search hidden files and folders." Type aiprefs in the search box and when it shows up, hit the Stop button and click the Delete button to delete the file. When you reopen Illustrator it will be fresh and dewy as a spring morning. (You don't even need a plug-in.) The program will have the same defaults as it had the day it emerged from the factory.