Changing dimensions

[Andras_Dombovari@adobeforums.com]

I open up Illustrator CS, create a new doclument and a rectangle. I then click on the Transform tab and adjust the rectangle's size to W: 3in and H: 3.0778in.

After I hit "enter" in the size field, the value for the Width jumps to 3.0082in, the Height stays correctly at 3.0778in. So I go to the Width field and correct it to 3.0000in, and then the height jumps to: 3.0694in.

Basically I could just play this game all day, but instead I decided to ask here why this is happening. I have tried to search on the forums, but had no luck in finding anything about this.

why does Illustraor keep changing the dimensions?

[jonf@adobeforums.com]

I don't have CS, and it doesn't do this in AI10 for me. Is there a "constrain" option in CS? Sounds like it's constraining your dimensions.

[Gary_Newman@adobeforums.com]

Try going to Prefs and turn off Use Preview Bounds.

[Andras_Dombovari@adobeforums.com]

jonf: I am not sure. I actually had this problem before CS as well, but I just ignored it, because I did not need the precision. Now someone else mentioned this to me, who is having the same issue on his computer.

Gary: the "Use Preview Bounds" option is turned off. It still does it.

[Andras_Dombovari@adobeforums.com]

Here is a file that you could download and look at what is going on. Just copy the following link and download it.

The file is an MPEG4 file encoded in QuickTime, so you should be able to view it using QuickTime.

<http://beszeljukmac.com/off_pics/illustrator.mp4>

[Lance_K@adobeforums.com]

Hi Andras,

There's a couple things that might be happening here, both of which have been discussed before in Illustrator forums. Take a look at these posts for possible ideas:

Teri Pettit "Transform palette doesn't show true size of objects" 11/11/03 12:04pm </cgi-bin/webx?13@@.2cce5330/0>

<http://www.adobeforums.com/cgi-bin/webx?128@@.1de8fe2d>.

Hope these help.

Lance

[Andras_Dombovari@adobeforums.com]

Hi Lance,

Thank you for your link. Just what I was suspecting. Illustrator measures locations in points, and does this conversion when using units, which changes a location of a point.

There are few ways around it, basically by laying out things a little different or playing around with the resolution of things and object sizes. Thank you for your answer, I will work with this...now that I know what caused it.

Thank you jonf and Gary too for your answers,

Andras