How do I scale up an image in Illustrator to a normal size?

Question

I have an image in Illustrator that I've made, but I made it at 2500% zoom. How do I scale the image back up so that it is normal size when it's at 100% zoom? Or at the very least, how do I export it to InDesign at a decent size so I can work with it effectively? I can always zoom in to 2000% and then take a screenshot, but that feels like a workaround (because it is a workaround).

Answer 1

IF you produced your artwork (use term 'image' for pixelbased documents) at a zoom level of 2500% it still is artwork. Means, you can save your file as .ai (.pdf, .eps) file and import it in InDesign. While it is vectorbased the actual dimensions don`t matter - it is scaleable to any size.

For future work it is better to produce artwork at reasonable zoom-levels. Use high zoom only to edit details, like points on a path.

Anyhow you can scale in many ways but be sure to group your whole artwork. You could scale with the mouse (hold down the shift-key) clicking on the edge of the group, use the real numbers like @Tom suggested, use the transformation window, or use the scale tool.

Answer 2

• Open your doc and zoom in to 2500% so that your image appears normally.
• Open Preferences > Units and change the General units to whatever you are using in InDesign. Pixels, Millimeters, Inches, Points, etc.
• Open the Transform panel (Window > Transform).
• Select your image. See how the width & height (W: and H: in the Transform panel) show the image’s dimensions? With the image selected, and the chain link icon to the right of the W & H activated (looks like a complete chain, not a broken chain), change the width & height values to approximately the size the image will be in InDesign.
• The image will take up the whole window (if you're zoomed in @ 2500%), so Zoom Out a bunch or view the Actual Size (View > Actual Size).
• If you need to adjust your Artboard Size to fit around your new, normal image, do that in File > Document Setup.