spacebar for handtool / option for drag copy command no longer working in Illustrator

[craigverse]

I do a lot of design work in Illustrator cs3.

Normally when working with a document I use the spacebar to quickly bring up the handtool to drag around my document. This no longer works.

Shift no longer works for keeping art proportional when scaling.

Option no longer works when selecting then dragging artwork to make it copy.

Pressing h on the keyboard still activates the handtool though, same for pressing something like a and bringing up the direct selection tool.

Any suggestions on how to being back the other functionality on the keyboard? Perhaps a plist file I need to delete!

Halp! I'd greatly appreciate it! :confused:

[jerryrock]

Hold down Command+Option+Shift while starting Illustrator to reset preferences. This should be the first troubleshooting step.

[craigverse]

Hold down Command+Option+Shift while starting Illustrator to reset preferences. This should be the first troubleshooting step.

I'd actually forgot that trick. Thanks. That didn't work though. Then I went into system preferences -> keyboard shortcuts -> restore defaults thinking that might affect something.

That however didn't work either. Then I restarted. It's still not working.

One thing I noted is that when I press option when I have something selected I get the double arrow as if it's going to make a copy when I drag but then it doesn't.

I do not get a hand tool when pressing the spacebar though. :[

Any other suggestions out there?

[ox4dboy]

I just started experiencing this problem myself.

There is a good discussion here:
CS3 Bugs? Hand Tool & Proportional Scale Not Working (http://www.adobeforums.com/webx?14@@.3bc40cb4/0)

None of those suggested fixes have worked for me, but they might for you? More or less, here is a summary of that link:


reset AI's preferences by holding down SHIFT + OPTION + ⌘ (command/Apple) (Windows Shft+alt+ctrl) while starting Illustrator
deleting Illustrator's preference file from your Mac "user"/Library/Preferences/com.adobe.illustrator.plist
disabling Spotlight's shortcuts that use space bar in Spotlight's preference pane
"somebody in another topic suggested to kill some processes in the Activity Monitor to see what was causing the trouble. I then found out that my Last.fm helper was the trouble"
go to window>workspace>default to resets the panels and the key commands
update MS Office to the most recent patch
"turn off the replication in Entourage and do it manually"
Restart the Mac and DO NOT launch Entourage. Work like that for a while and see if the keys respond correctly.
update Quicken if you have that installed
quit VPN or other log on item that requires the use of a password


I've tried all but 4,7,8, and 10 with no success. I am about to test those in a minute and will report back ASAP.

Everything worked fine for me up until today; here's what's unique to today:

I did a "Save as..." from Illustrator CS4 to CS3
I enable File Sharing in my Network preferences today (for the first time) and copied the file to another computer via my Network
I opened the file in CS3 on the other networked computer when I noticed Space bar did not trigger the Hand tool. FYI _ i am not working directly from the Network.
I swapped keyboard and monitors via hot swap - unplugged from Mac #1 and plugged into Mac #2


Other applications that are concurrently running:

Parallels
Outlook (via Parallels)
Firefox (Mac)
Font Explorer X Pro


Before today I used the same applications + Illustrator with out problems. Anyone else have a suggestion or a fix?

[DennyMcEntire]

I was having the same issue. VERY frustrating. After reading this thread I noticed that I, too had Firefox opened (same as ox4dboy). So I quit firefox and my keyboard shortcuts were back! Seems like a pretty obscure bug.

[DennyMcEntire]

Another program that seemed to break it today was Textmate. Just thought I'd capture that here in case it's useful to anyone else.

[cyarema]

I've had the same problem....my problem was that the I opened word before opening illustrator and throwing all my illustrator preferences off. But as long as i remember to open illustrator first, I don't have that problem. So aggravating. Took me days to figure it out.

[cardboardcowboy]

I have just experienced this issue for the first time and that's the reason I found this thread.

I can add that the problem for me was with the recently released Hulu Desktop application. My spacebar wasn't bringing up the hand tool so I closed the Hulu app and all is well again. It could be because the app supports the use of an apple remote (a feature I love, by the way). I've never had any issues with any other programs though. Just thought I'd give a heads-up.

[Alona]

Hi. I am still having the same issues, with Illustrator CS4.

- hand tool doesn't come up with spacebar pressed
- shift doesn't help to scale proportionally
- holding option and dragging (even thou it gives a double arrow) doesn't copy
- space+apple key for Zoom+, and space+apple key+option for Zoom- don't work either (used them for years - soooo frustrating!!)

Tried trashing AI prefs, quitting Safari, word, VPN, Mail... disabled Spotlight space prefs... Nothing works!!

Please help!
~Alona

[Alona]

whatever it was - it finally just got fixed!!!
right after i posted my message. i kept trying all the solutions described above, and something did the trick... not sure what exactly, as by that point i was already pretty desperate and didn't keep track of what and in what order i was doing....

thank you for sharing your experience!


Hi. I am still having the same issues, with Illustrator CS4.

- hand tool doesn't come up with spacebar pressed
- shift doesn't help to scale proportionally
- holding option and dragging (even thou it gives a double arrow) doesn't copy
- space+apple key for Zoom+, and space+apple key+option for Zoom- don't work either (used them for years - soooo frustrating!!)

Tried trashing AI prefs, quitting Safari, word, VPN, Mail... disabled Spotlight space prefs... Nothing works!!

Please help!
~Alona

[linzibop]

Well would you know it, Word was the culprit for me! Had to trash preferences and restart, but thank god that panic is over! Thanks god for this forum!

[Steffy15]

If you're having problems with Firefox etc affecting Illustrator try using this browser instead

http://caminobrowser.org/

I have just downloaded it to try it and see if this works better than Firefox with Illustrator open.