Nov 10 2008
Gradient Bug in Illustrator CS4
If you’ve created gradients in previous versions of Adobe Illustrator, you will love the improvements in CS4. The new on-object Gradient controller lets you intuitively manipulate the gradient position and angle.
Want to change the color of a gradient stop? Hover near the gradient controller and the stops appear. Double-click on a stop, and an instance of the Swatches panel appears next to the stop. Choose a new color, then press Return or Enter to dismiss the Swatches. To add a stop, just click on the bottom edge of the gradient controller. You can even control the opacity for each stop along the gradient.
So far so good.
But I’ve discovered that some objects refuse to display a gradient controller. If you convert text to outlines, then apply a gradient, you’ll see the controller for an instant as you drag across the newly-created shape, but that’s it. The controller immediately disappears and you can’t have any of the fun I’ve described above.
You can’t use the gradient controller with grouped objects, or multiple selected individual objects. With Pathfinder-created objects, it gets even more confusing: if you Expand the object, it will display the gradient controller. Un-Expanded objects will have to be ungrouped first (even though the object may seem to be a single object). As for selecting multiple objects, you just can’t use the gradient controller: you can drag across multiple selected objects with the Gradient tool, but the controller disappears when you release the mouse button. To use the gradient controller, you have to address each object separately,
For text converted to outlines, try one of these approaches:
- Ungroup grouped objects (Object<Ungroup).
- Use the Direct Selection tool (white arrow) to modify just one point on the shape (move an anchor point the tiniest bit, or a yank on one of the direction handles), and somehow you release the inner gradient controller for the shape. Once you’ve done this, all is well, and all the swell on-object gradient options are available.
Hi,
I can’t get the gradient bar to stay visible even after following your directions. Any other clues?
Mine appears to have disappeared completely, on everything… It was all good for 6 months or so, but now just behaves like >CS3. Unless i’ve managed to accidently switch something off?!
Greg and Jay,
Are you working on multiple monitors? I did some research and discovered that there is a bug with the Gradient controller when the document is displayed on a second monitor. Here’s a quote from the Adobe forums:
“Seems the bug only presents itself if you have your document on a monitor arranged to the right of your main monitor. If your document is on a monitor to the left of the main monitor, things are fine. Things were tested on multiple displays, but this appears to be one of those specific items that slipped through.”
If that’s not your situation, it’s possible that your preferences are corrupt (I can’t find any preference that turns off the gradient controller). However, it’s easy to delete the preferences and start fresh. Try this and let me know if it helps:
On the Mac: Quit Illustrator. Relaunch it, and a microsecond after you relaunch, press and *hold* Command-Option-Shift. Keep holding until the splash screen disappears, and the Welcome screen is displayed. Then (finally) you can release the buttons. This is a one-two punch, so you have to have your fingers poised over those three keys as you launch, so you can press them immediately after Illustrator begins to launch.
On the PC: Same operation as above, but you’ll hold down Control-Alt-Shift.
Once you’ve relaunched Illustrator, create a new file, create an object, and apply a gradient to it. See if the gradient controller now behaves as it should. If it does, then go back into the documents that have been misbehaving, and see if the gradient controller is working. If not, try copying the objects into a new file.
And please let me know if any of this helps!
It was the preferences after all, which is strange as I did a fresh install and problem was still there. I spoke to Adobe and the path to the prefs folder on the mac is users/username/library/preferences/Adobe Illustrator CS4 Settings. Dragging those prefs to the desktop (with illustrator closed) did the trick. Those prefs can then be thrown in trash. Thanks again for your help.
Greg,
Thanks for the update; I appreciate the information (and I’m glad your and your Gradient Controller are feeling better). Just to clarify: doing the three-fingered salute during launch didn’t get rid of the preferences sufficiently to fix this? Did the Adobe tech guy have you just delete the “Adobe Illustrator Prefs” file, or the entire en_US folder?
Huge thanks, now I have my gradient tool back! The three-finger method did the trick.