Navigate Your Page

Once you open or create a document, you ll find that Illustrator has a number of features that help you navigate. It might seem that navigation wouldn t be an issue with small projects, such as business cards or postcards. But because you might well want to magnify your document hundreds of times, even a postage stamp can be difficult to find your way around in.

You can zoom in and out of a document using the Zoom pop-up menu on the left side of the Illustrator window status bar. A quick, easy way to view your entire illustration is to choose Fit On Screen from this menu.

Note  

The Zoom pop-up menu is visible only when you have your document window maximized within Illustrator.

The Navigator palette is a great aid in navigating around a large document. Display this palette by choosing Window Navigator. The Navigator palette has its own Zoom slider that allows you to control magnification. Once you set magnification with the Zoom slider, you can use your cursor as a grabber hand within the Navigator palette to define which section of the illustration shows up in the main document window, as shown in Figure 2-11.

Figure 2-11: Defining a zoom area in the Navigator palette