To view your artwork up close you use the ZOOM TOOL from the toolbar.
You can also use the menu bar by selecting VIEW > ZOOM IN or ZOOM OUT.



The key commands for this action are shown in the menu bar. Learn them and really improve your efficiency!

There are two ways to use the ZOOM TOOL:

• You can click over the area you wish to see close up, and continue to click until you reach the desired magnification.

• You can zoom in on a specific area more quickly by clicking a bit outside of the area you want to view and dragging a box over the area you wish to magnify.

 

If you magnify too much, hold down the OPTION ( MAC)/ALT (PC) key and click over the area you wish to work on to decrease magnification.

Sometimes you need to zoom in so close that some of the object you are working on disappears beyond your visible workspace. You could use the scroll bars at the bottom edge of your document to get to the spot you want to work on, but an easier way is to use the HAND TOOL to move your artboard without having to decrease magnification.

To do this, hold down your space bar, click anywhere on your artboard and drag and the entire artboard will move.
 

I’m embarrassed to say, but this trick eluded me for a long time... and it’s probably the easiest key command of all to remember! My solution before I learned to use the hand tool to get to the exact spot I wanted was to zoom out, find the spot I want, zoom in, work, zoom out, find the spot I want, zoom in, work, zoom out, etc., etc., etc. ... you get the picture. You’ll save yourself a lot of time learning to use the HAND TOOL. You can also access this tool on the toolbar, but the key command is so easy to remember and it works at all times in Illustrator.