AI: Snapshot Common Actions

Often I find myself having to do the same action over and over again within Illustrator. But some effects have no way of saving a preset or keeping their settings intact. Of course If you are working on a bunch of items and applying the same effect from the effects list over and over again you have the option to reuse the last effect. But what If you use other effects in between or turn off your computer, you have no way of saving a preset within the effects dialog boxes and revisit your old settings.

A handy workaround I found is fairly simple for keeping your settings with your document. Simply take a screen-shot of the desired dialog box with your preferred settings and paste it within your Illustrator document. That way an image of the dialog box is embedded within the document and you can follow those settings when you need them again, weather it is tomorrow or in a few weeks/months. You can keep them on a separate layer and collect a few common settings. Just remember to delete them before print production.

Open your dialog box and set your preferred settings and then follow this procedure:
MacOSX: Hold Command+Shift+Ctrl+4, when the crosshair appears press Space and then select the dialog box to grab it. After grabbing, close the dialog box and paste your image on the Illustrator Artboard using Command+v.
XP/Vista: Select the dialog box, Hold ALT+PrntScr to grab an image, close the dialog box and paste your image on the Illustrator Artboard using Ctrl+v.