I was drawing a series of white-Filled shapes with red Strokes of various widths. At a certain point, I decided to apply an Effect to the Strokes of all the shapes. I selected all of the objects (Edit > Select All) and immediately discovered a problem. There was a question mark in the Fill Box of my Tools palette. How could this be? All of the Fills were supposed to be white. Had I inadvertently forgotten to fill some of the shapes? How could I find all of the unfilled shapes quickly without clicking on each object, one at a time?
I could click on any object that IS Filled with white, and go to Select > Same > Fill Color. All the objects that ARE Filled with white would be selected. Then go to Select > Inverse to find the Unfilled culprits. But the fastest way to tell the difference between a white Fill and NO Fill on a white page, is to go to View > Show Grid. Because the Grid is behind all objects, it can’t be seen through Filled objects. So the Unfilled objects (with the Grid showing through) stand out like a sore thumb.
Tip provided by Jeff Witchel, Certified Adobe® Training Provider.
Author: jeff witchel
Jeff Witchel graduated from Pratt Institute in 1973 with a B.F.A. (Cum Laude) in Advertising Design and Visual Communications. He has been an award-winning advertising art director, writer, designer, illustrator, and TV producer ever since.
Before starting his own advertising agency in New Jersey, Jeff built his career at top New York ad agencies such as Young & Rubicam, Grey Advertising, and Wells, Rich, Greene. Over the years, he has created award-winning work for many clients including AT&T, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Jell-O Pudding, The Plaza Hotel, and Pfizer. His many prestigious awards include N.Y. Art Directors Club Gold Award, One Show Gold Award, N.J. Art Directors Club Award, multiple Andy Awards, Graphis Annual, numerous readership awards, plus an Emmy Award nomination.
Jeff is a self-taught computer artist with over 19 years of experience. His initial introduction to the computer was with PageMaker, but he switched to Quark 1.0 when it was first introduced in 1987. Having arrived on the desktop publishing scene so early, Jeff became the “go to” guy for answers when others started getting into computer graphics.
As an Adobe Certified Expert, he’s provided online support for Adobe and is now an Adobe Certified Training Provider for both Adobe Illustrator CS2 and Adobe InDesign CS2. Jeff is one of just a handful of Adobe Certified Instructors in the New York metropolitan area. He also is a Quark Certified Expert in QuarkXPress 6 as well as a master of Adobe Photoshop and related applications. He counts among his training clients ad agencies, design studios, magazines, illustrators, and photographers in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maryland.
