3

Illustrator (and many other programs too) have a shortcut for resizing to fit/default Ctrl+0

My artboard is smaller than the space of fill in my screen, I'm wondering if there's a way to have a shortcut to view at 100% and other zoom amounts which I can choose later on.

I tried creating a new View (View → New View) and then applying a custom keyboard shortcut, but that seems to be per-document, I'm looking for a way to do this that will always work across all projects that I open.

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    I don't have Illustrator to test, but Photoshop uses Ctrl/1 for 100% [Cmd/1 on Mac] It also has [undefined keys by default] menu commands for 200% & Print Size.
    – Tetsujin
    Oct 4, 2018 at 7:37

1 Answer 1

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Ctrl+1 is the shortcut for a 100% zoom.

Go to View → Actual Size

enter image description here


If you want to input a custom zoom level after pressing a shortcut, you need to use a script.

var zoomLevel = prompt("Percentage:", "100");

if ( zoomLevel ) {
    zoomLevel = zoomLevel / 100;
    app.executeMenuCommand("fitin"); // Centers the artboard to the window
    app.activeDocument.activeView.zoom = zoomLevel;
}

enter image description here

If you want to define a shortcut to launch this script, you need to use third-party apps to tell Illustrator to open the script file when a shortcut is pressed.

There are many ways to do it. In this answer, I list 3 different ones. A way to do it in windows is at the bottom of the answer.


There is also the Window > Navigator but you can't set a shortcut to focus on that input.


Someone in that other question says Illustrator now (CC 2018) remembers it if you record an Action that opens a script, which would allow you to then set a shortcut for the action. This has been a problem in the past because AI would just drop out the script recording after a while. I guess on restart (maybe). I forgot.



I'll throw this in too, since I happened to make it. This code zooms all documents.

var aDoc = app.activeDocument;
var zoomLevel = prompt("Percentage:", "100");

if ( zoomLevel ) {

    zoomLevel = zoomLevel / 100;

    for ( var i = app.documents.length; i--; ) {

        var activeDoc = app.documents[ i ];

        // "fitin" = Fit artboard in window
        // "fitall" = Fit all artboards in window
        // "actualsize" = Actual size (100% Zoom) 
        app.executeMenuCommand("fitin");
        activeDoc.activeView.zoom = zoomLevel;

    }

    app.activeDocument = aDoc;

}
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  • Illustrator (CS6) doesn't have actions that can remember a script - to the best of my knowledge.
    – Welz
    Oct 4, 2018 at 12:38
  • @WELZ, I didn't want to repeat the answer, but it does mention CC 2018
    – Joonas
    Oct 4, 2018 at 12:39
  • Not the same approach, but... on a per-document basis for custom Zoom, AND pan AND layer states - you can save a View. View>New View, name it, and it then shows up in your list of available views. Not easily short-keyable, but one-click get to able. I use this most often in multiple art boards... Oct 4, 2018 at 14:31
  • 1
    @GerardFalla I would've liked to use that method, but they can only go per-document - which won't help much.
    – Welz
    Oct 4, 2018 at 15:24
  • 1
    @WELZ - if most of your files tend to be similar, you could create yourself a new template files with your predefined Views, and then work from that starting point... Oct 4, 2018 at 16:08

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