Turn off the perspective grid in Illustrator CS5

110 Comments

 

This is what will sometimes appear on your screen.

For the past few weeks in using Illustrator CS5, it has come to my attention that a very consistent problem kept coming up, the perspective grid.
If you use the key command Shift + O to modify your art boards you may sometimes hit Shift + P instead, by doing so it will add a very intrusive grid on your screen. It’s not very clear how to remove this massive distraction at first glance, so here’s how to do it:

 

Menu:

View > Perspective Grid > Hide Grid

Mac Keyboard Command:

Shift + Command + i

Windows Keyboard Command:

CTRL + Shift + i

 

 

Comments

  1. Jentan Bernardus    October 8th, 2010 at 09:09pm

    This saved me some time from finding it out myself, thank you!

  2. leigh    October 13th, 2010 at 07:18pm

    You’re welcome! I’m glad it helped.

  3. japhigu    October 21st, 2010 at 05:40am

    Thanks!

  4. Aaron    November 2nd, 2010 at 05:36pm

    Thank you!I learned.

  5. Tim    December 20th, 2010 at 10:50am

    Thanks dude

  6. natalie    January 5th, 2011 at 10:17am

    Thank you!!!!! IT was driving me batty :)

  7. Kay    January 11th, 2011 at 03:42pm

    thanks! this is very annoying indeed.

  8. Pedro    January 25th, 2011 at 12:07pm

    Thanks from Brazil!

  9. Karen    February 3rd, 2011 at 02:45am

    Thank you for this! I am starting to learn Illustrator and I’ve been hitting many random things that make random things pop up which in turn make me very frustrated. This helped a lot! :)

  10. Leigh    February 24th, 2011 at 10:46pm

    Yeah it drove me nuts haha

  11. K8lyn    March 15th, 2011 at 07:53pm

    Thank you! It was killing me!

  12. Scott K    March 16th, 2011 at 08:27pm

    What a massively stupid feature to have in the first place. People who want to draw in perspective should LEARN HOW and not bother longtime users with this annoying so-called feature. The most basic drawing features of Illustrator have been buried over time by useless twaddle like this.

  13. Scott K    March 17th, 2011 at 01:33am

    Rather, Adobe should not bother with this annoying feature, I should have said. A cheater tool like this is no substitute for learning to draw perspective theory correctly.

  14. clint d    March 30th, 2011 at 02:39pm

    that is amazing. i can’t believe there are only 13 other comments. worst feature ever.

  15. saul good    April 15th, 2011 at 03:18pm

    thank you!! another mind-blowingly stupid ‘feature’ of illustrator cs5..

  16. SusanUSA    May 7th, 2011 at 05:40pm

    Thanks! I was going nuts trying to get the grid turned off.

  17. Mike    May 11th, 2011 at 06:53pm

    word!!!!! you rock

  18. Andrea    May 20th, 2011 at 01:37am

    It makes me laugh , finding so many people (me included) having this problem. I’m not an illustrator-guru but it isn’t normal going nuts to get rid of A GRID in this suite. very tedious!

  19. riccardo    May 27th, 2011 at 06:52am

    I said a boom chicka rocka chicka rocka chicka boom!

  20. Mike    June 6th, 2011 at 12:41pm

    Illustrator is much tougher to use than Corel Draw. A lot less user friendly. Too bad…but thanks this was driving me nuts I finally got out of it!

  21. Zane    June 15th, 2011 at 09:29pm

    That thing is a bastard. Thanks.

  22. Anna    June 16th, 2011 at 07:55am

    Thanks! Very simple, but very useful.

  23. zobi    June 21st, 2011 at 12:31pm

    thanks dude :D

  24. Tanvir    July 3rd, 2011 at 01:42pm

    thanks dude!! its a real pain in the head with that thing.

  25. Dolly    July 12th, 2011 at 01:55pm

    Pain in the arse to find. Cheers mate.

  26. Michiel    July 18th, 2011 at 11:55pm

    Great thread! Thanks, saved some valuable time here.

  27. Catherine    July 19th, 2011 at 02:42pm

    thanks so much !!!!!

  28. Carina    July 21st, 2011 at 07:28pm

    Thanks for saving me the stress of finding out how to delete the grid. Your site was the first on Google with the answer! Good on you! I’ll come back here again!

  29. Catherine    August 3rd, 2011 at 02:40pm

    Ahhhhhh! Thank you!!!!

  30. Joshua    August 8th, 2011 at 11:05am

    Phew, that was annoying, thanks….

  31. yvonne    August 14th, 2011 at 12:45am

    ty so mucchhhhhhhhhhhhh!

  32. jay    August 23rd, 2011 at 10:45pm

    thank you!!!

  33. Anandaroop Ghosh    August 24th, 2011 at 01:28am

    thank you so much. saved me a lot of time.

  34. alia khairat    August 31st, 2011 at 11:13am

    oh thank god! That explains why all the squares I draw come out skewed all of a sudden?

  35. mushroomer    September 9th, 2011 at 03:22pm

    another way to remove the grid
    press shift+p to “select” the grid
    press that little “x” in the icon at the top left of your workspace

  36. Robert in SF    September 24th, 2011 at 04:56am

    PERSPECTIVE GRID and MASKS ISSUES in CS5 (22 yrs+ AI Devotee here).
    #1 Perspective Grid: Thanks! NOW I can FINALLY turn that #@%!!# thing on & off (MANUALLY); I couldn’t make it go away. This may free-up some keyboard shortcuts. And turn OFF Adobe’s ill-advised keyboard command for this widget. Any command involving the letter “P” should have to do with “Printing” IMHO. Thanks so much, I just couldn’t get that darn grid-matrix to go away. And most tools in Illustrator toggle on and off. Not this little Rosemary’s Baby of a Widget! I applaud Adobe’s effort at adding this type of capability in vector, “E” for effort, etc. But just like so many other ANNOYING little things in CS5 forward; I wonder whether Adobe has messed with some long-standing AI commands & functions to placate their post-Freehand Customers (???). Example:
    #2. I still HATE, HATE, HATE the WAY MASKS (DON’T) WORK in CS5! They work like they do in Freehand. With my CD standing over me I could NOT grab a masked linked file. My IT Guy gets around this by making a layer for everything masked (??!!) VERY clunky & difficult to isolate and MOVE one of MULTIPLE links or elements in a “master” mask! Hope Adobe goes back to what WORKED in Masks (BTW, I’m a Select by Path kinda guy, NOT an Area Select kinda guy, which probably exacerbates?) Just WHY did Adobe RUIN the EASE OF USE of the way Masks just worked (multiple items, no problem, just hollow tool & click!). Also, now to click to open a link in Photoshop I find I have to carefully HIDE EVERYTHING ELSE, BEFORE I can option-click to open link in PSD. Often times, I just give up & manually open link from images list in Finder. AI built it’s rep on PRECISION PLUS STREAMLINING FUNCTIONALITY for EASE of USE. AI is getting way more powerful & stable (esp. on giant-screened IntelCore Dual iMacs we use).

  37. Bri    October 2nd, 2011 at 07:59am

    Thanks so much for this! I accidently pressed the tool without knowing what it was a pressed. I finally found out but I was never sure what to do when it happened again. Then it happened again and so I found myself here. Now I know :) Thank f**k for that!!

  38. timichango    October 5th, 2011 at 06:33pm

    Uh…. I might be going crazy here, but there is no ‘perspective grid’ item in my view menu… anyone have any insight into this? Gah!

    -Tim

  39. iuri    October 12th, 2011 at 09:41am

    THANKS!!

  40. silvia    October 14th, 2011 at 05:02pm

    dude… saved my life… i was about to throw my mac trough the window!
    thx

  41. marso    December 7th, 2011 at 01:37am

    thanks.

  42. francois    December 9th, 2011 at 08:22am

    thank you

    • Leigh    December 9th, 2011 at 09:50am

      No problem!

  43. Shane    December 11th, 2011 at 07:55am

    Thank you! This feature is incredibly annoying. That useless widget thing that pops up but you can’t actually click on just adds to the confusion. I suppose it might be useful at some point but the implementation is terrible.

  44. Aya    December 15th, 2011 at 06:21am

    Thank you!!!!

  45. Jayesh    January 2nd, 2012 at 11:07pm

    Thanks a lot for your help.
    The tool is really annoying and hated by me.

  46. Mimi    February 6th, 2012 at 06:12am

    Thanks so much for this – I tried clicking on the “x” like a lot of other forums suggested to no avail.
    Your shortcut worked beautifully.

    Many thanks!

  47. a graphic    February 14th, 2012 at 07:54pm

    duuuuude u rock! u saved my life and my nerves telling me how to turn this #@^%#&%$ off! you’re my god!

  48. Tararrr    February 20th, 2012 at 10:19pm

    Thanks for this! My head was wrecked trying to figure out how to get rid of the grid.

  49. Megan    March 22nd, 2012 at 01:48pm

    Thank you so much!!!!!!

  50. Sam    April 18th, 2012 at 08:28pm

    Hey bro thanks so much for this, really saved me some time.

  51. gonza    July 5th, 2012 at 06:40am

    muchisimas gracias!

  52. Thiet ke in Ha noi    July 7th, 2012 at 01:03am

    Very helpful – Im looking this, Thanks you very much

  53. ben    July 29th, 2012 at 04:54am

    i have to say it: Thank you

  54. Warribros    July 31st, 2012 at 01:14pm

    Problem solved! Thank you so much.

  55. ACE    August 10th, 2012 at 09:51am

    Muchas gracias!! desde Costa Rica!!!!

  56. Margarita    September 6th, 2012 at 05:25am

    Thank you. What I don’t understand is why the help button is so useless in all of adobe’s product. It doesn’t even respond to the word ‘Grid’. So thank you again.

  57. Vivian    September 24th, 2012 at 08:02am

    Thank you… I have been starting a new file to get rid of it…

    V

  58. ck    October 10th, 2012 at 08:25am

    Thank you so much, i had this problem for a very long time. thanks.

  59. andrea    October 13th, 2012 at 10:37am

    Ditto to what Silvia said! I’ve been working for hours with this freaking grid on my screen and no idea how to turn off. Thanks!!

  60. Vicky    October 15th, 2012 at 04:52am

    HUGELY appreciated!

  61. Mikey    October 23rd, 2012 at 01:01am

    Take that perspective grid! thank you so, so much!

  62. RUDY    October 28th, 2012 at 06:06pm

    THANK YOU!!!!

  63. ely    November 1st, 2012 at 01:16am

    tenkiu

  64. Kemar    November 14th, 2012 at 10:28pm

    SShhhg! Finally I can’t believe how this issue has been obstructing me. Thanks bro!

  65. tere    November 20th, 2012 at 01:18am

    Thank you! it’s been annoying me to death for a few times now~

  66. Tim    November 21st, 2012 at 09:05am

    Major THANKS!

  67. David    November 26th, 2012 at 08:34pm

    thanks, that was annoying, glad to find this!

  68. Jari    November 29th, 2012 at 08:34am

    Thank You!!

  69. elsa    November 30th, 2012 at 07:34am

    THANK YOU !!!!!!!

  70. Frank    December 5th, 2012 at 10:40pm

    Thank you! just spent 20 trying to do this by clicking on that round icon… wierd UI design on that part

  71. Clive    December 14th, 2012 at 04:40pm

    Thank you!

  72. shiv    December 16th, 2012 at 09:31pm

    Thanks from INDIA!

  73. Theo Dixon    December 17th, 2012 at 10:55am

    Thank you :) !!!

  74. Dr. Harris    December 28th, 2012 at 11:57pm

    Thanks for the instructions! That tool was pitifully painful to work around.

  75. Hayley    January 4th, 2013 at 10:46pm

    I was totally smashing my mouse on the ‘x’ ughh. Thank you so much!

  76. Tom    January 7th, 2013 at 02:39pm

    Thank you very much!! If only Adobe could be as helpful, like having an obvious dismiss or escape button in the tool panel.

  77. marina    January 13th, 2013 at 06:56am

    thank you so much! I was stuck with that grid and i couldn’t take it out!!!
    You saved me :-)

  78. Lori    January 18th, 2013 at 09:56pm

    Thank you so much!

  79. Ash    January 21st, 2013 at 10:34pm

    Thanks so much for this helpful tip. I was 8 seconds from punching my computer screen. lol

  80. Mimi    January 23rd, 2013 at 02:31pm

    Thanks SO much! Adobe help was USELESS!!!

  81. Sandy    January 31st, 2013 at 11:02pm

    Thank you sooooo much!! So close from throwing my computer screen at the wall

  82. Autoescuela Sevilla    February 1st, 2013 at 03:48am

    Thank you so much! I was scared when the grid appears and I could’t turn off it!! thanks.

  83. rod    February 1st, 2013 at 03:49am

    Thansks for your tip.
    This appearance is a very painful thing indeed and I always forget how to disable it.

  84. Roxel    February 16th, 2013 at 12:24am

    Damn it, I never thought it was just easy like that… hahah.. anyway.. thank you bro…

  85. Isobel    February 17th, 2013 at 04:35pm

    I wanted to say thanks too, time saver!

  86. Jo Ooakes    February 28th, 2013 at 12:34am

    Don’t really use this and I spent ages trying to find out where it turns off. I ended up here. Thanks so much. Must remember for future! Adobe didn’t really make this very clear at all.

  87. Thomas    March 1st, 2013 at 05:00pm

    such a stupid feature, thanks for this trick

  88. Diego Morales    March 21st, 2013 at 08:47am

    Thanks from Costa Rica! Incredible, I spent a lot of time trying to close this tool…this tip is perfect…

  89. Nicky    March 26th, 2013 at 09:30am

    Thank you, thank you, thank you – was getting desperate. Interesting to see that over 2 years after your post, that this feature is still giving people grief . . . Thanks again

  90. MichelleMarie    March 27th, 2013 at 10:31am

    You are doing God’s work. lol

  91. Gavin    March 27th, 2013 at 09:42pm

    +1 for all of positive comments above!
    thankyou

  92. Jennilee    April 2nd, 2013 at 09:43am

    You guys are just the best. (this comes up first in google, by the way. proud of you!).

  93. Maarten    April 2nd, 2013 at 12:03pm

    Thanks!! It is ridiculous that you cannot just ‘ESCape’ things in Illustrator…

  94. umyr    April 15th, 2013 at 01:54am

    Thank you so much – finally i get rid of this ______ grid

  95. David    April 16th, 2013 at 09:15am

    Thank you so much! I realized immediately that I had accidentally hit Shift+P instead of Shift+O, so, I tried to toggle it off with the same command. That is how it should work, but obviously does not. Again, thank you!

  96. Ansel    April 16th, 2013 at 09:31am

    Thanks so much for this.

  97. jane    April 16th, 2013 at 09:41am

    yea thank you!

  98. ishita aswal    April 17th, 2013 at 03:48am

    thanks

  99. Hello    April 19th, 2013 at 12:35am

    Thanks, ur so great! Almost lost my mind with that stubborn whatchamacallit grid

  100. Alfie R    April 19th, 2013 at 07:59pm

    thank you!!

  101. Lena    April 20th, 2013 at 12:15am

    That could’ve have driven me mad – thanks.

  102. Kevin    April 22nd, 2013 at 12:28pm

    Thank you. This seems like it should be an intuitive command, but I have wasted hours on such things in the past. Not this time, thanks to you!

  103. mark    April 23rd, 2013 at 06:42am

    thanks a mills, this was driving me mad

  104. THN83    May 2nd, 2013 at 08:54am

    Thanks your help

  105. tim    May 11th, 2013 at 10:27pm

    such a silly feature. thanks

  106. Mel Piper    May 13th, 2013 at 02:54am

    that’s great thanks!

  107. ravihara    May 13th, 2013 at 11:46pm

    thanks a lot dude. it was a pain in the ass

  108. Mike    May 17th, 2013 at 07:47am

    Thank you!!!
    Very much appreciated. I was having a manic day and this somehow got turned on…. You’ve saved me some time for sure :)

  109. kris    May 20th, 2013 at 05:11am

    Thank you so much!