You can change the behavior of the zoom tool in Illustrator, most notably by enabling or disabling the "scrubby zoom" feature. You can also simply select the zoom tool itself.
Selecting the Zoom Tool
To simply use the zoom tool:
- Locate the Tools Panel: Find the vertical bar of tools on the left side of your Illustrator window (default location).
- Select the Zoom Tool: Click the magnifying glass icon (looks like a plus or minus inside a square).
- Use the Shortcut: Alternatively, press the Z key on your keyboard to quickly activate the zoom tool.
Once selected, you can click to zoom in, Option-click (Mac) or Alt-click (Windows) to zoom out, or click and drag a marquee box to zoom into a specific area.
Changing the Zoom Tool Behavior: Enabling Scrubby Zoom
One significant way to "change" how the zoom tool works is by activating the "scrubby zoom" feature. This allows you to click and drag your mouse left or right to smoothly zoom in or out. As mentioned in the reference, this feature needs to be turned on in your Illustrator preferences.
Here's how to enable scrubby zoom:
- Access Preferences:
- On macOS: Go to the Illustrator menu in the top-left corner of your screen, then select Preferences.
- On Windows: Go to the Edit menu at the top of the window, then select Preferences. The reference notes you just need to find the "preferences".
- Navigate to Performance: In the Preferences dialog box, select Performance from the list on the left.
- Enable Scrubby Zoom: Under the "GPU Performance" section (or a similar section depending on your Illustrator version), find the option for "Enable Scrubby Zoom" and check the box next to it.
- Confirm: Click OK to apply the changes.
Once enabled, when the zoom tool (Z) is active, you can click and drag your mouse across the artboard to zoom dynamically.
Turning scrubby zoom off means the zoom tool will revert to its standard behavior of clicking to zoom or dragging a marquee.
