Illustrator: show scaled percentage

Question

Not sure if this is possible, but is there a way to scale something based on size, then determine the percentage that the object was scaled by?

Example:

I have a square 3" x 3" and i constrain proportions, then scale to 12" x 12". Is there a way to have illustrator show me that it was scaled by 400%?

Obviously this is easy to figure out for this example, but when i am increasing something that 3.2353blahblahblah to 72.534677blahblahblah its a bit more difficult and I'm really just trying to save time

Answer 1

Just an idea: Draw a square that is 1" x 1" besides (under, over, close to) the original object. Then scale object and square together. The dimensions of the square, after scaling, times 100 will be the percentage you are looking for. So if the square is 5x5 after scaling, the scaling percentage is 500%.

Answer 2

Illustrator doesn't retain a record of direct object transformations. There's no way to go back later to see what transformation has taken place.

The only internal way around this is to transform via Effects rather than direct object alterations.

You can then click the item in the Appearance Panel to alter it or simply see what what used.

I don't know how "workable" this is for your particular needs though.