Texture Preferences

Using the flyout menu of the Texture panel, doubleclicking the Texture tool in the toolbox, or pressing the Enter key when the tool is selected will bring up the Texture preferences dialog:

Texture Preferences Dialog

1. Annotation Color

Allows a choice of colors in which to annotate the on-screen widget, from among red, blue, magenta, green, and black.

2. Slow-Drag Divider

Specifies the factor by which the cursor’s movement will be divided when using Slow-Drag (see Texture: Tool Operation). The value can range from 1 to 500, with higher values allowing for smaller movements of the cursor.

3. Texture Background

Allows the background color of the preview windows of the Texture panel, Texture Manager, and Find/Replace Textures dialog to be specified, either as a checkered transparency grid or as a specific flat color. When set to Specific Color, the color can be changed by clicking on the color chip to bring up the standard color picker.

4. Default Texture Scaling

Specifies the scaling value that will be used when adding a new texture or resetting an existing texture; the default is 100%.

5. Default Autocover Setting

Specifies the autocover setting that will be used when adding a new texture or resetting an existing texture; the default is Enabled.

6. Crop Textures

When enabled, textures are cropped down to the smallest size necessary to cover the artwork (taking the padding value into account). This makes the Illustrator file smaller, since the entire texture does not need to be included. However, if the Texture live effect were ever to be expanded, then the resulting raster image may not include enough “extra” area to accommodate edits to the artwork.

7. Padding

The “extra” amount of image to leave on all sides of the texture before cropping it; the value can range from 1 pt to 1000 pt (but may vary slightly, as image dimensions must be in an integer number of pixels).

8. Downsample Textures After Expand

When enabled, and the appearance of an art object with a Texture live effect is expanded, the resulting raster image is downsampled to the specified value if its effective resolution is higher.

9. Downsampling Value

The desired downsampled texture resolution, ranging from 1 to 2400 pixels per inch.

10. Informational area

Shows a brief description of each preference control when the cursor is being hovered over it.