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How to quickly and easily scale any object using percentages using the Scale Tool.

Quick reference

Scaling Objects

How to quickly and easily scale any object using percentages using the Scale Tool.

When to use

If you wanted to add some depth or perspective to a shape or text, the Free Transform Tool would be the best tool for the job.

Instructions

  • Begin by opening the Scaling Objects - Exercise.ai file
  • Select your text with the Selection Tool (V) and then locate the Scale Tool in the toolbar to the left side of the interface and double click on it.
  • Once the dialog box appears, check off the preview box and the option that says 'Uniform' to ensure that your type will be scaled proportionally.
  • Enter a value somewhere around 2-300 and apply the changes. 
  • Select your text again and then press 'D' on the keyboard to give it a white fill with a black stroke. 
  • Open the Stroke Panel to the right and increase the weight of your stroke to about 8-10.
  • Double click on the Scale Tool once again, and then make sure that the preview box is still checked.
  • Leave the 'Scale Strokes & Effects' box UN-checked and then apply a uniform scale of about 20%.
  • Notice how when your text is reduced, the stroke dominates and you can barely see the white fill color.
  • If you go back and check the 'Scale Strokes & Effects' box before you apply the transformation, the strokes and effects will be scaled accordingly and in proportion to your type.
  • If you select your text and go to the Effect Menu and choosing Stylize>Drop Shadow you can check off the preview box and apply a quick Drop Shadow.
  • Now if you attempt to apply another scale change without checking the 'Scale Strokes & Effects' box you will see the effect it has on your text with the shadow applied. 

Hints

  • The keyboard shortcut for the Scale Tool is 'S' on the keyboard.
  • Any time that you want to use the Scale Tool on text that has an effect or an outline applied, it's a good idea to leave the 'Scale Strokes & Effects' box checked off to ensure consistency.
  • If you want to modify or remove a drop shadow or other effect from the Effect Menu you can do so by opening the Appearance Panel from the Window Menu and then double clicking on the effect to change the parameters, or by clicking on the eye icon to turn the visibility of the effect on and off.
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  • 00:04 Now that you guys have seen some of the basic ways to distort and work shapes and
  • 00:08 text, I'd like to show you, again, just a recap,
  • 00:11 how to scale objects, and these are some of the various ways that you can do it.
  • 00:16 Now, I know that you may be familiar with the basic way,
  • 00:18 where you can just hold down the Shift key and scale an object up or down like this.
  • 00:22 But we also have something that I touched upon briefly earlier,
  • 00:25 called the Scale tool.
  • 00:26 And that's found over here in your tool bar.
  • 00:29 So if I double-click on the Scale tool,
  • 00:31 you'll see that it brings up this dialogue box, which we saw briefly earlier, and
  • 00:36 you can put in this option here to scale uniform or non-uniform.
  • 00:39 So if I wanna scale this uniform, to make sure that it's exactly half the size and
  • 00:43 it's constrained, I'm gonna enter that value here in the uniform box.
  • 00:47 But if I want it to be non-uniform,
  • 00:49 I can put in a value like 100 to scale it 100 horizontally, and
  • 00:55 then I can enter in a completely different value for the vertical option.
  • 00:59 But in addition to those options, you also have these check boxes below,
  • 01:04 called Scale Corners and Scale Strokes and Effects.
  • 01:08 So if I enter a value here of, say, 300,
  • 01:10 and I scale that up, well, you can't really notice a difference right away.
  • 01:15 But let's hit OK for a second, so I can show you guys what that does.
  • 01:19 If I have my text selected and I press D on the keyboard, to have a white fill and
  • 01:23 a black stroke, and then I press X to make sure that my stroke is in the foreground,
  • 01:28 I'm gonna come over here to the stroke panel and
  • 01:31 change the weight from one to about eight.
  • 01:33 So now if I double-click on my Scale tool, and once again, by pressing S or
  • 01:38 just by double-clicking on it over here,
  • 01:40 now I have this option checked off to scale strokes and effects.
  • 01:44 So if I change this from 300% down to, say, 25%, it's shrinking this way down,
  • 01:50 but the stroke still looks the same way as it does when the text is larger at 300%.
  • 01:56 Now, if I were to leave this at, say, 100, and then un-check that, and
  • 02:01 now I shrink it down to, say, 30%, well, it's going to use that larger,
  • 02:05 the way that the stroke appears on the larger text, when it's shrunken down.
  • 02:10 And it looks pretty bad, right, because at this point,
  • 02:13 you can't even really see the white fill on the letters,
  • 02:16 it's just the stroke is just dominating and covering up all the other text.
  • 02:21 But the same thing will apply if we wanted to put an effect on this,
  • 02:24 such as a shadow or a glow, or anything like that.
  • 02:28 So let me show you really quickly.
  • 02:29 If you wanted to just put just a drop shadow, or something like that on here,
  • 02:33 you could use that, like any other filter or effect,
  • 02:36 just by coming up to the Effect menu, and choosing Stylize, Drop Shadow.
  • 02:40 Okay, now you can check off the Preview box here to just apply something quickly,
  • 02:45 and let's just hit OK for now.
  • 02:47 Now, with this drop shadow applied, if I just make a copy of my text, and
  • 02:52 then I grab my Scale tool and double-click on it,
  • 03:04 Now you can see that I have Scale Strokes and Effects checked off.
  • 03:08 So it's going to scale that in proportion to whatever size that I wanna make this.
  • 03:14 But if I un-check that, once again, the effect is going to have
  • 03:19 the same intensity that it has when it's scaled up to this larger size.
  • 03:24 So anytime that you're using the Scale tool,
  • 03:26 it can be a great way to ensure that any outlines, or filters, and strokes, and
  • 03:31 things like that, are scaled proportionally.
  • 03:34 Because you don't want to produce something that looks like this, but
  • 03:38 then when you reduce it down, it looks like this.
  • 03:41 So using the Scale Tool is a great way to ensure consistency
  • 03:45 when translating something from a larger size down to a small size, and vice versa.

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