Panning while editing text

[Bob_Flisser@adobeforums.com]

Maybe this has already been discussed, but I can't find the answer anywhere.

Pressing the spacebar, as a shortcut for the Hand tool, is great, and I also use it in Photoshop and InDesign. But when you're editing text, pressing the spacebar (of course), just types a space.

In InDesign and PageMaker, I can get the Hand tool while editing text by pressing Alt instead of the spacebar, but I can't find any key combination (Ctrl + Spacebar, etc.) in Illustrator to let me do this. Is there any shortcut for a temporary Hand tool while editing text?

[Harron_K._Appleman@adobeforums.com]

Bob,

Don't know about IL 11 (CS), but this is true of 10.x.

It would be nice to have the Alt thing à la InDesign, but in its absence, most of us Illustrator users rely on various workarounds. Perhaps the easiest is to Ctrl-click outside your text area. This will enable you to get the hand tool via the spacebar and access the tools via keyboard shortcuts. Hitting the Esc key while in text mode will get you the selection tool (again allowing use of the spacebar to access the hand tool).

Yup, it sucks, but that's the way it is. Voice your opinion over at new feature requests.

By the way... yes, this has been discussed here numerous times before. It's been a while since the last flare-up, however, and those posts have probably scrolled off the system.

=-= Harron =-=

[bill0199@adobeforums.com]

It's incredibly convoluted but while typing if you press Command/Control first, then press and hold down spacebar, then release command/control and you'll have the hand tool but click the mouse as soon as you release the control key to keep the cursor from puttering off but this works (although inane).

[Harron_K._Appleman@adobeforums.com]

That used to work for me in IL 8, Bill. Alas, it's no longer a reliable solution in IL 10 Win. (Still works fine in IL 10 Mac.)

=-= Harron =-=

[Bryant_M@adobeforums.com]

Just Press "Esc" than press "H" that will select hand tool, if you want to go back to editing text, press "T" and click on the text.

[Dion_G@adobeforums.com]

Of a similar nature... one thing that gets my panties in a bunch is:

While you are dragging out a shape for Area Type in Illy, you can't press the spacebar and move the shape before you release it... like you can in PS or InD.

Why, oh why, oh why?

[Bob_Flisser@adobeforums.com]

Hmmm, I think we've identified something for the wish list in the next version -- or hopefully the next patch.

Until then, I think the Esc/H/T works best. Bill, your method works...if I can remember the right sequence!

[Eddie_Ostrowski@adobeforums.com]

Bob, to me, a more powerful way to pan your AI doc while the Text Tool is activated, is to use it in conjunction with the Navigator Tool instead. Try this; 1: Type some text on your doc. 2: With the Text Tool activated, press the Ctrl key and maneuver the colored box (proxy view area) thats inside the Navigator. Or, with the Ctrl key still depressed, you have the option to resize the colored box to define your viewing area. I find it much faster to pinpoint a particular area this way. Hope this helps... Eddie

[Harron_K._Appleman@adobeforums.com]

Eddie and others...

While these are all good workarounds, you're kind of missing the point.

Many of us like to keep our left hand on the lower left corner of the keyboard. Almost instinctively, we press combinations of Alt, Ctrl, and spacebar (Option, Command, spacebar on the Mac) to access a wide variety of things from the hand tool to zoom in/out to... a surprising number of useful functions, especially if you work a lot with béziers. Try it. We're used to working this way because it's fairly consistent across prepress apps, including the non-Adobe QuarkXpress.

(I even have a programmable keyboard with movable key caps so that Alt, Ctrl, and spacebar occur in that order at the lower left. This mimics the Option, Command, spacebar configuration on Macs, making platform totally irrelevant for me when working in Adobe apps and QXP.)

Our left hands strike out at other parts of the keyboard only when some combination of these three keys does not get us the tool we need. We can, furthermore, keep our mouse on the art with minimal excursions to menus and palettes.

For those of us who work this way, the ability to access the hand tool with the Alt key while in text mode, as one can in InDesign, Pagemaker, and QuarkXpress, would be a welcome addition in Illustrator. Period.

=-= Harron =-=

[Toni Toomey]

Many of us like to keep our left hand on the lower left corner of the
keyboard.




This being an equal-opportunity forum and all, I might point out that many of us lefties keep our right hand on the lower right of our keyboard. >;-) It actually makes Ctrl+Shift+Enter easier to hit in PS to do the same thing as Ctrl+click in other applications.

BTW, someone might have been able to devise a more finger-busting keystroke combination than Ctrl+Shift+Enter, but they would've had to really work on coming up with one.

T

[Harron_K._Appleman@adobeforums.com]

Thank you, Toni.

I once tried mousing with my left hand. But since the mouse was to the right of my keyboard, I nearly strangled myself. I don't know how you lefties do it.

=-= Harron =-=

[Toni Toomey]

Um, Harron? We put the mouse on the left side.

Actually, I started life as a right mouser until I trashed my wrist using the on-board mouse on an early laptop. Was forced to become a left-mouser. When I broke my left wrist, I went back to right mousing for a while, but then fell of the wagon as soon as the wrist healed and went back to the left. Helps to keep your options open.

:) T

[Dion_G@adobeforums.com]

"I'm not an ambi-turner"

- Zoolander

[Bob_Flisser@adobeforums.com]

The trick is to be ambimouseterous! When one client saw me mousing with one hand and writing with the other hand, he asked if I could balance a ball on my nose at the same time.

I told him that would be in the next version.

[Toni Toomey]

mousing with one hand and writing with the other hand




Now that's impressive. I can barely write with either hand.

T

[LenHewitt@adobeforums.com]

>>I told him that would be in the next version.<<

You SHOULD have told him "That costs extra!" <g>