Illustrator (Desktop) Feature Requests
When entering a new feature request, please provide:
- Description
- Why is this valuable to you?
4749 results found
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Find and replace graphics
One of the greatest features of Freehand, and something I miss greatly in Illustrator, is the "Graphic Find And Replace" tool. I use the text find and replace a lot and bringing the same tool set to the graphics side would help with production greatly.
Some of this functionality can be found with "select same as ..." but is more limited and requires extra steps. Or working with symbols but that's less flexible.
5 votes -
Refine (not revert to previous) zoom to selection
Now, 'Zoom to selection' zooms AND centers.
I think that zoom to selection should not center at all by default (and, of course, there should be an option to add centering to zoom). The selected art should stay where it is located in view, until zoom level is big enough so object will go outside current view — only then AI should move view to fit the art.
And there should be a tick 'Only for zooming in'.
19 votes -
Polygonal Lasso/Rubber Band effect for standard lasso
Polygonal Lasso/Rubber Band effect for standard lasso. Should work just like PS lasso. You don't get a break now. Once you start a lasso selection it's on until you've completed your selection.
31 votes -
Alt+click in Appearance hides all effects except clicked one
Sometimes I need to isolate one particular effect and work on it.
I always try to alt+click it, like I do with layers in Photoshop, but fail, of course.
Why not to add this in AI?22 votes -
Recolor Artwork Undo
Can we have an option to Undo within the Recolor Artwork panel?
35 votesYes, the Recolor dialog does not have its own undo stack, and all changes are permanent. Since Recolor is often used as an experimentation tool, this behavior limits the freedom and forces users to avoid it and loose applied settings.
The team is now aware of the situation and hopefully some changes will be made.
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Allow linked content within symbols
It would be nice to create symbols with linked content that would update when the linked content changes. Currently you have to embed anything within a symbol, images for example.
16 votes -
Turn Sensei Off and Presets
Sensei is making my life ****...what it thinks I want to do is not what I want to do, as such the bug I want to report is my "turn sensei off" button is hidden. For example when using the puppet tool I have to now delete all the pins Sensei thinks I want before I can do the thing I actually want to do making the task longer than it needs to take. That's just the latest (five minutes ago) example of how Sensei is messing up day. Give us a checkbox in preferences to turn Sensei off.
Presets…
1 voteThere is already a preference to turn off the Sensei feature that you spoke about. Go to preference , go to general tab and turn off the checkbox “Enable Content Aware Defaults”. This is the last option on the second column.
Units are part of presets so each time you create a file using a preset it will create using the units that was saved in the preset. To workaround this what you need to do is follow the following steps:
1. Press CTRL+N or CMD+M – depending on your platform
2. Select the preset of your choice e.g. A4 / Letter etc…
3. On the right pane change the unit to your choice like inches.
4. Create your file
5. The next time you come back to this file new dialog you should have this preset in your recent tab -
Option to permanently expand areas of the Properties panel
I have a lot of empty space in the new Properties panel.
Having to click the '...' every time I want to access extra options seems clunky when I have so much unused space.
In the old interface you could double-click on the top bar of a panel and it would expand to your preference and remember that expansion.
A similar option here would be welcome.-
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30 votes -
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Right-click Contextual menu with Layers panel (same as in Photoshop)
Wouldn’t it be nice if Illustrator had a similar contextual menu as in Photoshop?
It would be much easier to e.g. duplicate a layer, using right-click, than via tiny-hard-to-point-at hamburger menu at the layer palette.
Please…
34 votes -
Make a default workspace for "Illustration."
The software is called "Illustrator." Seems like there should be an "Illustration" workspace.
3 votesThanks for the suggestion. Which panels would you like in such a workspace? Do share your thoughts.
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Add a setting for "Solid" in the leading field of the type panel
Illustrator defaults to "Auto" in regards to leading - about 120% of the point size of the type. When using display faces, I often find I set type a lot tighter - usually around the same leading as the point size. It would be really helpful if there were a setting for that in the type panel, so that as I change the point size of the type (say from 24 pts to 72 pts) the leading would also change automatically from 24 pts to 72 pts - just as it would from one size to another when the leading…
1 voteWe can change the value Illustrator uses as 'auto' in Justification dialog, which you can access via the Paragraph panel’s menu. Change 'Auto Leading' to 100% to get what you want.
If you want this setting to be applied to all new text objects, you should open Paragraph Styled panel, and edit the [Normal Paragraph Style].
If you want this to be applied to every new document you make, you should learn about editing document profile files Illustrator uses as core templates. Just don’t forget to backup these.
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let me interact with the artboard while having appearance-effect dialogues open
As soon as a dialogue from the effects panel is open (e.g. 3D extrude & bevel or drop shadow, etc. ...) I cannot interact with my artwork anymore as the dialogue box hogs the focus. This is really annoying as you often want to adjust the size or position of your object when editing the effects to better see if everything meshes well together
2 votes -
To be able to select which artboards to see in the navigator.
I don't want to see all of my artboards.
3 votes -
Remember Pathfinder Options across sessions
Currently, the Pathfinder Options are not remembered across Illustrator sessions. This can be tested with the following steps.
- Launch Illustrator.
- Via the Pathfinder panel, use the flyout menu to open Pathfinder Options.
- Set the precision to anything other than 0.028 pt.
- Quit and relaunch Illustrator.
- Reopen the Pathfinder Options. The precision has been set back to 0.028 pt.
It would also be good if the Pathfinder Options were able to be recorded as an action. It seems like a bug that they can not now — recording an action for it appears to work, and there is a Pathfinder Options…
17 votes -
Masking objects or their parts - simple and fast.
Masking with "Make clipping mask" is often practical and fast. Great! Thank you.
I am asking you to modernize this method of creating a mask:- new option: Invert Mask
When I want to mask a part of an object quickly, but in only within the shape of my mask. For example, a hole in the facility.
new option: Add or create an "Opacity Mask" from the object above.
Such a practical shortcut to create a mask of the "Opacity Mask (alpha canal)" type from a selected object, eg with a griadient. Now, creating an Opacity mask is overly complicated.
Separate…
6 votes -
"1 click" no stroke/fill
It'd be nice to have a "one click" no stroke/fill instead of having to bring one to the front each time, or having to click the color and click again for 'none'.
It's a minor thing but turning a 2-step process into a 1-step process adds up over time.
See mock-up.
8 votes -
Unembed multiple images all at once
Be able to select multiple linked images in links palette and unembed them simultaneously.
62 votesThis feature is made available to you through all the public builds starting V 27.8. Please try it out and let us know what you think!
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Remember printer settings with Print Presets
I have two sets of print settings-- ones that are program specific (Ex: created in Illustrator from the Print Presets window), and ones that are printer specific (Created in the Printer/Setup window within the Print dialog in Illustrator, InDesign, etc).
In InDesign, if I create a print preset and then, via the Printer window, select an in-printer preset, InDesign remembers this choice and from then on printing with that InDesign preset will ALSO use that in-printer preset. In illustrator, that's not the case: Illustrator retains no memory of in-printer presets when creating in-program profiles, so I have to manually select…
2 votes -
Font identification
Provide an automated routine to identify fonts that were converted to outlines, or that are in a bitmap format.
33 votesHello,
We have started working on the tech that allows us to enable the following:
- Ability to convert the outlined/expanded text back to live text.
- Ability to lock objects to a character/glyph of a live text, allowing users to change the text (properties) while the object stays locked into the character.
As we work through the complexities of handling different font families, font size, and other font properties, we would love to meet with you and share our thinking around it and understand :
- Your use cases and workflows that this feature will help you with.
- What is most essential for you.
- The workarounds that you currently use to achieve this.
If you are interested, please pick a time slot that works for you using this link. https://calendly.com/meetai/60min?month=2023-01
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Ability to change starting point for closed path
Currently the only option is to cut and the path or redraw the path completely if the starting anchor is in the wrong place. For straight edges, such as a square or even a rectangle it's easy to work around, but when it's a curved edge it is difficult to replicate the same curve with the cut method. Could easily add this feature to stoke effect so that the starting point can be adjusted with a click on the anchor. Or have left and right arrows to move it to a different starting anchor (although that wouldn't work on things…
12 votes
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