General options

The General pane of the Options dialog box lets you control general, mouse wheel, and Color Dropper details of the Microsoft Expression Design experience.

General

Rectangle antialiasing   Use this option to set how you want the corners of your rectangles to be displayed. Choose between Crisp and Smooth.

Quick (area) select   When you clear this option, objects are selected only when you click them. For example, if you drag an unselected object, it won't move. This saves you from accidentally moving objects when you mean only to select them. However, if you select this option, you will be able to select and move an object in one dragging motion.

Transform image fill   When you scale, rotate, or otherwise transform a path that has an image fill, the pattern is transformed in the same way. Clear this option if you want patterns to remain in their original size and orientation, despite object transformations.

Path operations: Keep originals   Select this option to keep the source paths after you use the path operation features. When you clear this option, the original paths are deleted.

Create new layer above current layer   When you clear this option, new layers appear at the top of the layer list (in the Layers panel). Select this option if you want new layers to be created above the currently selected layer.

Automatically commit transforms   Normally, Microsoft Expression Design saves a list of all transforms (scaling, rotating, moving, and so on) that you have applied to each object and doesn't commit the transforms until you tell it to. If you select this option, transformations are committed automatically every time you apply them. Note that if you disproportionably scale or skew an object with a stroke, the stroke may be wider in some areas and narrower in others. After committing the transform, the stroke width will be the same around the whole object.

Preserve pixel dimensions on bitmap import   Select this option to preserve the pixels per square inch (ppi) resolution of the imported bitmap. If you select this option, Expression Design will resize an imported bitmap image to preserve the physical dimensions of the pixels. For example, if you import a file with a resolution of 72 ppi into a Expression Design document with a resolution of 96 ppi, Expression Design will scale the image smaller.

Note

Selecting this option does not apply to imported .ai files.

Mouse wheel

Mouse wheel usage   You can assign the rolling of the mouse wheel to different tasks. Select Zoom to use it for magnifying the page. Select Vertical scrolling to scroll vertically (or horizontally when you hold down the SHIFT key). Select Horizontal scrolling to scroll horizontally (or vertically when you hold down the SHIFT key). Note that when either of the scrolling options is selected, you can still make the mouse wheel zoom by holding down the CTRL key.

Mouse wheel zoom about mouse position   If the mouse wheel is set up to allow zooming, you can control where the center of magnification occurs. If you clear this option, you will always zoom in or out based on the center of the visible page. When this option is selected, the pointer position is used as the zoom center.

Color Dropper

Picked color   You can set the Color Dropper tool to obtain either the Object color or the Screen color. For more information, see Copy colors, gradients, and image fills.

Messages and warnings

Display all messages and warnings   Select to display any Expression Design messages or warnings.