Switch to Eyedropper while editing text
While editing text, we often need to grab the Eyedropper tool to pick some formatting or color for the selected range from another object. An instinct whispers 'Press I key' — and it obviously but often unexpectedly replaces the range with the 'I'. Undo!
Then me might think of pressing Alt — and it does temporarily switch to Pan — which is cool and useful, since you can’t hit space.
We need a modifier to temporarily switch to Eydropper.
...but all modifiers are taken (except fort Ctrl+Shift, which swithes input languages if you have several for some users) and Ctrl+Alt+Shift (which is too long to be a viable solution).
What if we change the behavior of pressing Shift while in editing text mode? Most probably nobody needs to create new text object with vertical orientation while editing a text, right? Let’s use Shift for temp switching!
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Tré Carden commented
Bumping this. Always wanted this.
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James, it’s an another problem altogether, an ability to create discontinuous text selections (along with some 'boolean-like' controls over it, when Shift always adds (but not toggles), Alt always subtracts, etc.
These should be requests as a separate thing, and there is none made so far at UserVoice.
I encourage you to make one if you wish, but please provide a solid enough foundation for this request, since it’s a huge endeavor, to modify an existing engine for that. -
JAMES SHEVELIN commented
Whats good with this? This post is one of the only ones on google that summarizes our shared issue - Obviously you cant use the standard tool shortcuts while editing text - and FURTHER - illustrator doesn't allow you to highlight multiple distinct portions of text (which creates gaps in the highlighted selection) which would allow you to pick more than just one single selection to highlight / disengage / select dropper / apply dropper.
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Just copy the way InDesign does it, please.
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KhalidR commented
Can a better way of picking a text style other than using the picker tool as this takes you out of text editing mode which is really inconvenient especially when you have selected a text box which is several layers below another item. I would be really great if whilst I was in the text box I could use something like the Ctrl+Shift key to get the curser to change to the Picker tool so that I can copy an existing text style from nearby.
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Sforza commented
Right now the eye dropper tool works really well.
I am currently using it to copy styles from other type that I am working on.
I normally select type, then manually select the eyedropper tool. But when repeated over and over I have to de-select type, short cut to type tool, select type, manually select eyedropper.I propose that the eye dropper tool use an alt or ctrl key in addition to "I" so that you can switch to the tool with a short cut while you still have type selected.