Annoying option copy glitch?

[Pal]

Hi-

It seems like I've been having this problem since right around the time CS came out, and it's still sticking around.

I know you can hold option and drag an item to make a copy of it, but for years I was also consistently able to hold option and click the arrow keys to do the same thing. This allows me to hold option, click up once, then click the copy back down to the same spot if I want to copy something precisely on top of itself.

So the problem is that sometimes Illustrator lets me do this, but then all of a sudden the process will stop working. Have I accidentally disabled this feature with a keystroke? Has anyone else had this problem? I know I can press Cmd C, Cmd F to do the exact same thing, but I'm in the habit of doing this my way and this glitch drives me absolutely nuts. I'd appreciate it if anyone out there knows how to correct this.

Thanx!

[nutella]

yes, it happens to me all the time on CS2. sometimes it works, and then all of a sudden it farts and no longer works. then something happens, and works again.

[Scott Weichert]

There are some applications which take charge of some shortcut keys. Most commonly, anything Microsoft or Intuit (mainly Quicken). These applications take charge of the keys and do not release them for other applications to use. Updating to the most recent release of these applications will most often correct the issue.

[nutella]

That's interesting to know! But as for myself, the only microsoft application I have installed is Windows XP - at least at home.

It sounds interesting enough, that I might actually investigate this at work where I have other microsuck apps installed. Now you raised my curiosity.

[Scott Weichert]

I know it's a Mac issue, not 100% certain it's a PC problem.

[TORCH511]

Windows apps have been pretty good at not hijacking hotkey combinations. Have not had any occurances of this since XP really.

One noted exception is some of the screen capture stuff (fraps, snagit and many others) which when active will override another programs hotkeys. The programs are programmed to do that however so it should be no suprise. Other than that have not experienced or even heard anyone complain about it for years.