The alignment grids in Adobe® Illustrator® (View > Show Grid) are non-printing grid-lines, customizable by the user, to aid in layout and design. It's great for alignment and designing. User can freely set some properties for the grid, including its color. Unfortunately only the color of the main grid lines can be controlled. Subdivision lines are colored automatically. But what if we would like to increase the contrast or have our subdivisions completely different..? We can do this in few steps!!!!
Here is the scenario:
1.1 Launch Adobe® Illustrator®
1.2 Edit Preferences
Go to Edit > Preferences > Guides & Grid…
Set Grid > Color to for example RGB 255, 0, 0 (red)
1.3 Locate your AI Preferences File (mac os/windows)
Go to Doc Revealer Tool (free copy available here) and hit Preferences button. This reveals the Adobe® Illustrator® Preferences folder. Select AIPrefs (Illustrator® CS6, Windows) or Adobe Illustrator Cloud Prefs (Illustrator® CC, Windows) or Adobe Illustrator Prefs (Illustrator® CS6, Mac OS X) or Adobe Illustrator Cloud Prefs (Illustrator® CC, Mac OS X).
Do not open the file yet!
P.S. Of course, you can locate the Ai Preferences Folder manually – full tutorial available at http://pawelkuc.blogspot.com/2014/04/setting-up-rectangular-grid-in-adobe.html
1.4 Quit Adobe® Illustrator®
1.5 Open your AI Preferences File for editing
Since the AI Preferences File is a plane text file you can open/edit it with any text editor, for example Notepad (Windows) or TextEdit (Mac OS X)
1.5.1 Windows
Right Click on the File > Open With > select (for example) Notepad
1.5.2 Mac OS X
Right Click on the File > Open With > Other… > Applications > choose (for example) TextEdit.app
1.6 Modify AI Preferences File
Find the Grid record in your file. It starts with the /Grid keyword:
/Grid {
…
…
…
}
This could be something like this:
/Grid {
/Horizontal
{
/Spacing
20.0
/Ticks
4
}
/Vertical
{
/Spacing
20.0
/Ticks
4
}
/Posn
0
/Style
0
/Color {
/Dark {
/r 1.0
/g 0.0
/b 0.0
}
/Lite {
/b 0.5
/g 0.5
/r 1.0
}
}
}
The Grid Color is controlled with two variables: /Dark and /Lite. The Dark one refers to the color we’ve already set via Adobe® Illustrator® Preferences Dialog Box, RGB 255, 0, 0:
1.0 = 255/255
Now, we will modify set Lite color (subdivisions) to, let’s say light blue RGB 187, 209, 255:
187/255 = 0.73333333
209/255 = 0.81960784
255/255 = 1.0
/Color
{
/Dark
{
/r
1.0
/g
0.0
/b
0.0
}
/Lite
{
/r 0.73333333
/g 0.81960784
/b 1.0
}
}
That’s it! Save and Close your file.
Note: Make sure the file is closed before you start AI
1.7 Launch Adobe® Illustrator®
Go to File > New
Go to View > Show Grid
Our Colored (red + light blue) Grid should appear. Here is my result:
Pawel Kuc
http://63mutants.com/
