Lesson B: Hand Tool and Zoom Tool

Quick navigation is essential to getting proficient in Illustrator. The Hand tool and Zoom tool are keys to that navigation, and there are a few trick to use them efficiently. Scroll bars take too long to navigate and I never use them. I like these shortcuts instead.

Hand Tool

• Find the Hand tool in the toolbar or use H as a shortcut.
• Click anywhere on the document to grab and move the window around.
• Hold the Space Bar. This will activate the Hand tool. Let go and you are back to the last tool you were using. Note: If you try that when you are typing, you’ll get spaces! In this case there is a shortcut to the shortcut: ⎇/Alt will show the Hand tool when you are in type editing.

Zoom Tool

• Find the Zoom tool in the toolbar or use Z as a shortcut.
• Click anywhere on the document to zoom in. No mystery there.
• With Animated Zoom turned off in Preferences (Preferences > Performance > Uncheck Animated Zoom) you can click and drag the Zoom tool over any object and the area you define will zoom full screen and be centered in the window.
• Everything is big. Now what? Double-click on the Hand tool to fit the artboard to the window, or double-click on the Zoom tool to show the artboard as actual size. You can also use the Zoom In and Out commands under the View menu: ⎇ (Mac)/Alt (PC), 
⌘ (Mac)/Ctrl (PC).