Skip to content

What can we fix in Illustrator (desktop)? Vote or report a bug.

← Illustrator (Desktop) Bugs

Anchor Point Guides are invisible in Illustrator 2019 unless selected?

I installed the newest AI update (v23) and started testing some of the new features when I noticed that the anchor points that I rely on for my work have vanished. I've attached screen snips to show the difference between AI 2018 and 2019.

That little magenta X shows up in earlier versions but now it's invisible. It's still present and can be selected if I know where it is but that defeats the purpose, in my opinion. There must be some way to turn these back on, right?

I've tried toggling many settings in the menu and the closest thing I can find is Hide / Show Edges, which only affects my ability to select the anchors. Switching between CPU and GPU rendering doesn't affect it, and playing with the options in the "Selection & Anchor Display" menu in the preferences doesn't help. (screenshot attached)

My first installation was an upgrade that kept the previous version's settings. No anchors. I uninstalled that and had it remove the preferences and do a fresh install. No anchors. Uninstalled and removed preferences, reinstalled AI-2018 and it shows anchors just like it always did. Installed 2019 fresh (again no anchors) and tried importing my 2018 settings manually but that doesn't work between versions.

Is this affecting anyone else? A solution would be greatly appreciated!

Some installation details:

Illustrator 2019
Windows 10 Enterprise, build 17134
Dell Precision workstation, Xeon E5-1620 v3, w/ 16GB RAM
AMD FirePro W5100 4GB with the latest pro drivers, 18.Q3.1. (updated from v17-something while troubleshooting this issue)

7 votes

We're glad you're here

Please sign in to leave feedback
Signed in as (Sign out)
Close
Close

We’ll send you updates on this idea

Oz shared this idea  ·   ·  Report…  ·  Admin →
How important is this to you?

We're glad you're here

Please sign in to leave feedback
Signed in as (Sign out)
Close
Close
Need More Info  ·  AdminEgor Chistyakov (Admin, Adobe Illustrator) responded  · 

It seems like several problems got mixed in the comments.


1. Guides made of single anchors (displayed as <Guide> in Layers) are displayed correctly in the latest versions of Ai when View > Guides > Show Guides is enabled (although they are rather small).


2. Illustrator does not draw centerpoints for ellipses while moving then in GPU mode — a know problem, reported separately here: http://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/601447/suggestions/39740689

Please upvote it if you want to see edges while moving.


3. Show Edges option gets occasionally disabled — gets fixed with Cmd/Ctrl + H. Edges still won’t be drawn when GPU Performance and Real-Time Drawing and Editing options are enabled in Preferences > Performance, only when you switch to CPU mode.


If your case is nothing like this — please comment and share details on the problem, with steps and screenshots or videos.

Show previous admin responses (1)

We're glad you're here

Please sign in to leave feedback
Signed in as (Sign out)
Close
Close
Submitting...
An error occurred while saving the comment
  • Glo commented  ·   ·  Report

    Having the same issue. I selected Preferences and selected Show Anchor points etc....
    I can see the points in the vector view when the image is small but when I zoom in... the anchor point disappears! Whyyyyyyyyyyy? Please advise solution. The anchor is such an important part of illustrations/illustrator!

  • Janette commented  ·   ·  Report

    I am having the same issue and enabling the "show anchor points" in the preferences is not solving the problem. Please advise

  • Luis commented  ·   ·  Report

    So I am pretty new to AI, I am running 24.2.1 on a MAC, I used Gregory's suggestion and went into the Selection and Anchor display setting. I used the help tab to take me right to it but it was under the Illustrator menu>Preferences> Selection and Anchor Display, I then checked the box that said Show handles when multiple anchors are selected.

    That fixed my issue. Thanks Gregory for pointing me in the right direction.

  • Oz commented  ·   ·  Report

    SOLVED.

    It's been a few months since I last opened AI 2019 and I just updated to version 23.1 from September. This issue appears to be fixed so this year's Illustrator is now a functional program for me.

    Thanks, Adobe!

  • Oz commented  ·   ·  Report

    Sorry Johan, but enabling/disabling Smart Guides does not affect this problem. Smart Guides are the pink lines shown in this screenshot. Those are Illustrator's way of helping you align the object you're dragging with other nearby objects.

  • Oz commented  ·   ·  Report

    Hi Chris,

    COMMAND + H / CTRL + H toggles the "Show Edges" option. This only changes whether the corners of a path are visible. For example, draw a line with a few turns in it and each of those corners will show a little box if COMMAND + H is set to Show Edges instead of Hide Edges. I've attached an screenshot to illustrate.

    Unfortunately this doesn't control the little pink X markers we're having issues with.

  • Chris commented  ·   ·  Report

    command H worked great for me

  • Anonymous commented  ·   ·  Report

    Same problem. Using 23.0.4. All my anchors and toggles have disappeared in all view modes. This is how I finesse a line. I'm going to step back to an older version until this is fixed. Too annoying.

  • Scott commented  ·   ·  Report

    I, also, didn't make it work, but I appreciate that someone spent time trying to help me with the problem. Thanks

  • Oz commented  ·   ·  Report

    Hi Adam,

    Thanks for trying. I just gave that a shot and didn't have any luck. I tried with the Printing and Proofing workspace, as well as all the rest.

    CTRL + H toggles "Hide edges / Show edges" - and that does affect the visibility of these anchors, but it only changes whether you can see them while they're selected. What I'm trying to fix is how AI 2019 behaves and I want these little pink X markers to be visible whether they're selected or not, as shown in my "AI 2018 anchors" screenshot in my original post.

  • Adam Normand commented  ·   ·  Report

    SOLUTION:

    (1) Go to another Workspace. Top, right-hand corner dropdown. I went from Essentials to Printing and Proofing to get this to work.

    (2) Choose Direct Selection Tool (white arrow, top of left-hand main menu).

    (3) Use Cmd + H to enable (Mac) // Ctrl + H (Windows).

    Best of luck!

  • Scott commented  ·   ·  Report

    Sorry. It doesn't work for me. I gave up.

    I now use two small guide lines to make a +

  • Gregory commented  ·   ·  Report

    I was purely trying to display handles that wouldn't display when I selected an endpoint of an arc/point-curve. The handles were not showing and I was able to see them after the steps I performed in my last post.

  • Oz commented  ·   ·  Report

    Hi Gregory,

    I installed the latest Illustrator to give your tips a try, but didn't have any luck. Anchors still misbehave as shown in my first post.

    I have no problems with version 22 of Illustrator, but AI 2019 is still dead to me.

  • Gregory commented  ·   ·  Report

    I'm in an older version, so let me know if this works for you...
    1) I went into Edit -> Preferences -> Selection and Anchor Display and pumped up the #'s to max (8) for Tolerance and Snap to Point, then chose the boxes to the right under Anchor Point and Handle Display
    (This step may not even be necessary)
    2) Go to View -> Show/Hide Edges -> pick Show Edges...this worked for me.

  • dan commented  ·   ·  Report

    yep same thing here sucks!!!!!!!!!! wtf adobe hurry with a fix
    on 23.0.2 does not work

  • Patrick Cabral commented  ·   ·  Report

    I had a same problem yesterday. I converted an element to a symbol and duplicated it. But when I expanded the symbols, the nodes/handles on my expanded symbols are invisible. What I did is save a copy of my illustration to Illustrator 8 format and then close the file. When I open it again it's now visible. Hope this helps.

  • Scott commented  ·   ·  Report

    I've been using 22.1 to use my guides. But!, I also have to use 23.0 because the PDFs that 23 creates are not backwards compatible with 22.1. (Everyone else in my company is using 23 and we create Illustrator editable PDFs so that we can send them to our factories. Incidentally, I hope that our factories are able to use 23.0 created PDFs.)

    When you open a 23.0 PDF in Illustrator 22.1 it warns the user that it was created by a newer version of Illustrator and that data loss may occur. My experience is that when 22.1 opens a 23.0 PDF it deletes anything in the canvas area. It also deletes all of the artboards other than artboard 1.

    Illustrator definitely does not meet the requirement for, "it just works", or "KISS".
    It overwhelmingly qualifies for, "smash head on keyboard to continue".

  • Oz commented  ·   ·  Report

    22.1's menu looks like the current Anchor Points Preferences screenshot. It doesn't have the six little anchor preview images.

← Previous 1

Illustrator (Desktop) Bugs: Snapping

Categories

Feedback and Knowledge Base

(thinking…)