You have been working on a design and all of a sudden all of your shapes strokes and fills and your photographic images just turn into outlines. Chances are you hit the keyboard shortcut combination for outline view Ctrl + Y (windows) or Cmd + Y (mac). shows the same design in outline and GPU views

Two views of the same artwork: on the left in Outline Mode and on the right GPU preview. You can see in Outline view the raster elements (the halloween background and dart board) show only as outlines but you can easily see, select and all the vector objects by clicking on the edge of the object. 

Outline mode is a display mode that shows only points and lines in a simple black-and-white, processor-friendly display.

Why Would You Use Outline View?

Outline view can be a viable option when dealing with large, complex files that contain numerous anchor points and effects. This view can significantly reduce processing power and render time, especially when working on intricate drawings (think lots of anchor points)  or those that incorporate many effects. Illustrator may slow down when working on such files, but switching to outline view can allow you to continue editing without the need for the program to render all the colors, blend modes, raster images, or effects, resulting in a much faster redraw time.

I will also switch in outline view if I want to get at an object partially hidden by another object. Switching to outline view is usually faster than moving the object, tweaking the object behind and  then putting the top object back.

How Do I Get Out of Outline View?

Solution: From the menu choose View > GPU Preview or use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + Y (Windows) | Cmd + Y (Mac). These options will toggle between outline and GPU previews.
GPU Preview menu option

Note: GPU stands for Graphic Processing Unit.  When you are in GPU view you are leveraging the power of the processor on your computer’s graphics card.  For more on GPU Performance with Illustrator visit the Adobe help site.

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