How to Zoom In and Zoom Out in Illustrator

In the following tutorial, you will learn how to zoom in and out in Illustrator.

First, you will learn how to zoom in and out in Adobe Illustrator using the Zoom tool, and then how to do it using keyboard shortcuts, the scroll wheel, or the status bar.

What You'll Learn in This Illustrator Tutorial

How to zoom in Illustrator
How to zoom out in Illustrator
How to zoom in and out in Adobe Illustrator using keyboard shortcuts
How to zoom in Illustrator using the scroll wheel

1. How to Zoom In and Out in Illustrator Using the Zoom Tool

Step 1

Select the Zoom Tool (Z) (or hold down Control-Space to temporarily activate this tool) and simply click once to zoom in.

Hold down the Alt key as you click to zoom out.

Step 2

Go to Edit > Preferences > Performance and make sure that the Animated Zoom box is unchecked.

Using the Zoom Tool (Z), click and drag out a marquee rectangle around the area that you want to zoom in on.

Step 3

Go to Edit > Preferences > Performance and check that Animated Zoom box.

Select the Zoom Tool (Z) and simply click and drag to zoom in and out in Adobe Illustrator.

2. How to Zoom In and Out in Adobe Illustrator Using Keyboard Shortcuts

Step 1

Press Control-plus (+) to zoom in or Control-minus (-) to zoom out.

Step 2

Go to Edit > Preferences > Selection & Anchor Display and check the Zoom to Selection box.

Now select an object from your design and press Control-plus to easily zoom in on your selection. Obviously, you can also press Control-minus to zoom out.

Step 3

Here are two more keyboard shortcuts that can be pretty useful to zoom in and out in Adobe Illustrator:

Press Control-0 (View > Fit Artboard in Window) to zoom to the entire artboard.

Press Alt-Control-0 (View > Fit All in Window) to zoom to all your artboards (when you're working with multiple artboards).

3. Other Methods to Zoom In and Out in Adobe Illustrator

Step 1

Go to Edit > Preferences > General and check the Zoom with Mouse Wheel box.

Now play with the mouse wheel to easily zoom in and out in Adobe Illustrator. The Zoom Tool (Z) doesn't have to be selected.

Step 2

Finally, you can numerically set the zoom percentage using the settings from the status bar. Open the fly-out menu and select one of the preset zoom levels or type in a specific value.

Congratulations! You're Done!

Now that you know how to zoom in and out in Adobe Illustrator, feel free to use these techniques in your future projects.

You can find some great sources of inspiration at Envato Elements, with interesting solutions to improve your design portfolio.

Want to Learn More?

We have loads of tutorials on Envato Tuts+, from beginner to intermediate level. Take a look!