Datasheet

Chapter 1 ✦ Learning the Illustrator Interface

Navigating Around Your Document

Being able to move through a document easily is a key skill in Illustrator. Rarely can

you fit an entire illustration in the document window at a sufficient magnification to

see much of the image’s detail. Usually you are zooming in, zooming out, or moving

off to the side, above, or below to focus in on certain areas of the document.

Mousing Around in Illustrator

Illustrator requires the use of a mouse for selecting items, pulling down menus, moving

objects, and clicking buttons. Learning to use the mouse efficiently requires patience, prac-

tice, and persistence. In most programs, you can master using the mouse quickly, but using

the mouse with Illustrator’s Pen tool can be difficult at first. If you’re unfamiliar with using a

mouse, a fun way to get used to working with one is by playing a mouse-driven game. After

several hours of play (providing you don’t get fired by your employer or kicked out of the

house by your irritated spouse), you’ll become Master of Your Mousepad, King of Your

Klicker, and so on.

The mouse is used to perform five basic functions in Illustrator:

✦ Pointing, which is moving the cursor around the screen by moving the mouse

around your mousepad.

✦ Clicking, which is pressing and releasing the mouse button in one step. Clicking is

used to select points, paths, and objects, and to make windows active. (Windows

users: “Clicking” means clicking with the left mouse button, unless you’ve reconfig-

ured your mouse.)

✦ Dragging, which is pressing the mouse button and keeping it pressed while you

move the mouse. You drag the cursor to choose items from menus, select contigu-

ous characters of text, move objects, and create marquees.

✦ Double-clicking, which is quickly pressing and releasing the mouse button twice

in the same location. Double-clicking is used to select a word of text, select a text

field with a value in it, access a dialog box for a tool, and run Illustrator (by double-

clicking its icon).

✦ Control+clicking [right-clicking], which displays a context-sensitive menu when

you press Control and click on the Mac (Windows users only need to press the right

mouse button).

The cursor is the little icon (usually an arrow) that moves in the same direction as the

mouse. (If the cursor seems to be moving in the opposite direction from the mouse, check

that the mouse isn’t upside down, or, heaven forbid, that you aren’t upside down yourself.)

In Illustrator, the cursor often takes the form of a tool that you are using. When the

computer is busy doing whatever a computer does when it is busy, an ugly little watch or a

multicolored spinning circle (Macintosh) or hourglass (Windows) takes its place.

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