• Adobe Illustrator

  getting bounding box only when selecting?

  Posted by Dean Mikulla on November 29, 2009 at 2:02 pm

  Hi all. When I select objects to manipulate points and handles , I only get the bounding box. Points and paths are not visible. If I carefully move the direct select tool over a spot where I know there is a point until the arrow has an empty box next to it, and hold down the click, the point, path and handles become visible and I can move the point, but still cannot access the handles. The paths and points disappear when I leg go of the click.
  I should add that this started doing this mid project, and I’m a beginner so I click around a lot !
  If I copy and paste the object to a new project, everything works normal, all poinsts and handles appear and stay visible so I can move points and handles. I know I can just copy everything to a new project , but why did this happen? Did I change something to cause this in one of my clicking frenzies!?! I didnt change anything in the main preferences.
  Thanks, Dean

  Using CS2 on a Mac book Pro 5.2

  Dean Mikulla replied 16 years, 5 months ago 3 Members · 3 Replies
• 3 Replies

• 

  Les Nemeth

  November 30, 2009 at 3:49 am

  Try to delete your prefs file. Follow here:
  https://designorati.com/articles/t1/illustration/105/curing-illustrator-ills-resetting-preferences.php
• 

  Stuart Gill

  December 1, 2009 at 10:57 am

  It could be any number of things but the two obvious ones are a possible corruption of the file, as you said it worked properly when copied to a new file, and a glitch in the program/display/memory while working on that file. Les’ suggestion of deleting the AIPrefs file makes sense and hopefully stops it happening again.

  There are a couple of options which turn off certain selection features from within the View menu anyway. You can Show/Hide Edges, which turns on/off the selection highlight lines of the paths, including nodes and handles. Show/Hide bounding box is quite an obvious one. The other one is Outline/Preview.

  Although, none of the options I mentioned above from the View menu would give you the effect you saw in your file.
• 

  Dean Mikulla

  December 1, 2009 at 4:11 pm

  Thanks for the replies! I Trashed preferences and also checked the “view” menu settings, and it did the trick. I’m not sure which one it was but thanks again!

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