Illustrator (Desktop) Feature Requests
When entering a new feature request, please provide:
- Description
- Why is this valuable to you?
4730 results found
-
Smart Guides limited to current artboard
An option to have Smart Guides only snap to things that are actually on the current artboard.
It's annoying to be working on an empty artboard and have everything snap to things far off the screen on some other artboards. That can be pretty annoying.
26 votesIllustrator 2026 allows use to choose if we want Smart Guides to be limited to the currently active artboard.
We can toggle the behavior in Preferences > Smart Guides section, in Limit Snapping block, with the new Snap Within: Active Artboard.
Please try to use it and comment back to tell if it behaves as you expect it to. Any feedback is really appreciated and would help to shape it further.
-
Easier way to set color for Drop Shadows, Inner/Outer Glow, etc.
Right now when you need to change Drop Shadow's color, you have to click effect in Appearance palette, then click color and only then choose color.
But when you have a LOT of shadows — you are screwed (because Drop Shadows can't use global swatches: https://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/601447-illustrator-bugs/suggestions/34789156-drop-shadow-can-t-use-global-color-swatches).
You have to click EACH shadow and change it.
Not effective.Why not to make shadow's color appear in Appearance the same way as fill does?
It will also allow to change color of multiple shadows for one object at once (yeah, I have to layer shadows, because AI doesn't allow to tweak…
26 votes -
Allow to set key object inside compound path
When you isolate a group, you can set any part of selection inside this group as key object just by clicking it with Selection tool. This is great — I can align objects inside a group, yay.
But why I can't do the same inside of an isolated compound path?
Why can't I align parts of my compound path using another part of same path as a key object, as I can do inside groups?
Please, fix this.See attached animation.
I try to align squares to the left side of the square hole (I made a guide to show…26 votes -
Show how many artboards are selected
Since we can have multiple artboards selected and this selection isn't very noticeable (which should be fixed too), why not to show how many artboards are selected?
Just say how many in empty 'Name:' field, since it shows nothing when more is one artboard is selected, in brackets or different color.26 votes -
Better anti-aliasing
Long time ago I abandoned Xara and moved to Illustrator full-time.
I managed to solve all problems I had encountered with, but several things still bug me.One of them is this:
https://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/601447-illustrator-bugs/suggestions/31525333-minus-front-on-grouped-objects
https://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/601447-illustrator-bugs/suggestions/32954797-pathfinder-must-work-with-group-as-a-single-objectThe other one is a crude antialiasing.
See attached images.
Zara puts more shades of gray to show the slope of test line, while AI leaves more uniformly filled areas. It gets more noticeable when angle gets sharper.
Changing anti-alising options doesn't help.Please, make anti-aliasing better.
26 votes -
Identify and name color swatches with human-readable names
There is a very handy tool in Yandex.ru search engine, named 'Колдунщик' (literally 'Sorcererer', with triple 'er').
The way it works with colors is briefly described there (in Russian):
https://yandex.ru/blog/company/94762What it does is binds color names with color values. Some are quite standard, 'light blue', some are familiar, like 'bordeaux' (but every man think of different shade or even tone, speaking of it), some are very uncommon, like 'The color of the thigh of a frightened nymph' (it is a real color — https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuisse_de_Nymphe).
What if AI could name colors in a same way, when swatch is created…
26 votes -
Add the ability to select an object by clicking it's visual appearance (strokes, glyphs, effects)
Sometimes selection tools fail (seemingly) to pick up object.
For example, if you have an object with fat stroke, clicking to outside part of that stroke will select nothing (or object underneath stroke) — you have to select in/inside edge to do it.
Second example — type object, with an empty descender zone, behind baseline; you click below letters to select an object behind, but pick type object instead.
Third example — object with a subtle but wide drop shadow effect applied to it. Shadow is almost invisible (low opacity and light color), but when you click in it, AI…26 votes -
Make cursor instantly visible after jumping with arrows keys
While navigating text with arrows (or Ctrl/Cmd + arrows), especially in short word clusters, something like these:
mon-sun: 10:00–19:00
break: 13:00–14:00
it's quite hard to understand where cursor has landed after last jump, because cycle of blinking seem to stay the same or even elongate!
There's a second after jump until cursor is finally drawn.
Could you please add or fix it in such a way that cursor is immediately visible after any arrow jump?26 votes -
Import/Export DXF AAMA/ASTM
In order to be able to work back and forth with Fashion Cad Softwares, it should be useful for Illustrator to handle AAMA or ASTM standard of DXF.
I guess that Artboards could act as "Blocks" in order to remain the Pattern names and the layer hierarchy of entities (for trace, cut, punch or text)26 votes -
Customizable zoom levels (including mouse wheel zoom and hotkeys)
The current mouse wheel zoom (ALT + wheel) only navigates between zoom presets, making it incredibly difficult to use since the scale factor only doubles/halves most of the time. This is especially true when using touch mouse wheels (e.g., Microsoft surface mouse).
A setting that switches between this mode and a finer grain zoom (e.g., +/- 10% of current, possibly user-preference defined) would make this much more useful.
26 votes -
An ability to disable Text to Vector Graphic feature and any other generative options
I'd like to be able to turn off the new feature for "text to vector graphic (beta)" and others like it if possible, or for these to be disabled from the start, with an AI-free build.
25 votesTwo related requests:
1. Disable all "Generative AI" marketing popups — http://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/333657/suggestions/47696468
2. Remove Text to Vector from Properties panel — http://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/333657/suggestions/47638688
Please upvote them, if you agree.
-
Calculate the bounds in Document Raster Effects Settings automatically
As for today, if you apply a Gaussian Blur or a Drop Shadow effect to a shape — with a large enough value — it often gets cropped.
A workaround exists — to go in Effect > Document Raster Effects Settings dialog and increase the 'Add' value, thus increasing the bounds of the image generated.
...but why is this still a problem that we, users, should take care of, really? Ai knows how large is the blur, it knows the resolution, yet it can’t calculate the tight bounds automatically. Like what, is there at least one user who’d like their…
25 votes -
Create a guide trimmed to an artboard
There is a almost unknown way to create guides limited to an artboards — you have to pick the Artboard Tool first, and then drag a guide out of rulers. The resulting guide will be limited to the artboard’s dbounds.
However, we think about it somewhere in the middle of dragging a guide, using other tools... too late in a process!
Can we get a modifier to hold while a guides is dragged out to toggle the global/local guide mode on the fly? Alt is taken to switch horizontal/vertical (and it’s cool), but Shift and Ctrl/Cmd are free and do…
25 votes -
Allow to combine/merge selected text and path to Type on Path
In Ai on iPad we can select a text, hold a spot, and drag the text to a path, converting these to Type on Path. Easy!
To perform this in Ai for Desktop we have to cut the text, pick the proper tool, hold Alt (or use a subtool), click on path (very precisely), paste the text and then adjust the position (dragging tiny handles). Dated.
What we definitely need:
1. Ability to drag and drop a text on a path, using some modifier (Ctrl will do) to stick the text to the path
2. Have a command in Type…25 votes -
Batch apply action to selected items
It strikes me as absolutely bizarre that you can't apply an action to multiple objects in turn. You can batch apply actions to files. You can apply actions to selected objects. You can apply actions to a selected group of objects I think? But you can't batch apply actions to groups of objects. I have about 300 really short little lines in an infographic that I need to be the same length. They're fairly spread out and any anchor selection based approach would take 2 hours. What an incredible hassle.
25 votes -
Don't display clipped outside paths in Outline View option
Sometimes we have a large pieces of artwork clipped.
Sometimes we don’t care what’s inside until we isolate these to edit the clipped art directly.
Still, when we switch to Outline View, we see all the art that is clipped, clumped, overlapping, messy.
For these cases it would be nice to have an option to not draw parts that are outside and beyond of clipping paths.
Corel’s products does it a bit wrong — they don’t draw clipped parts in Outline at all, including parts that are inside. Ai should do it better.25 votes -
Exporting TIF with transparency
Unless I've gone completely mad, I could swear there used to be the option to Export a file to TIF with transparency (a checkbox in the export settings). This no longer appears as an option. How does one export a transparent TIF these days??
25 votes -
Keyboard shortcuts for all Pathfinder options (Unite, Divide, Trim, etc)
I work quickly and would like custom shortcuts for all the Pathfinder options.
25 votes -
Allow more than 5 swatches to be saved as a color theme/group
Please allow users to save more than 5 color swatches as a theme in Libraries. The number is very restrictive to our workflow.
25 votes -
Make an option to disable auto-selection of artboards, when clicked inside
AI now selects artboard whenever mouse is clicked within in (with any tool). While it's a great general behaviour, I'd like to be able to disable it.
I have to work with overlapping artboards (which, by the way, sometimes prevent AI from correctly selecting the artboard clicked—it depends on artboards' order). When object is copied, AI remembers it's coordinates. Then, when I go to the object I need to place my copied art over and press Ctrl+F, AI pastes the object in the same coordinates. Sounds OK, but when I clicked that underlying object, AI moved the focus from initial…
25 votes
- Don't see your idea?