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Illustrator (Desktop) Feature Requests

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166 results found

  1. Transform options with clickable arrows all the time

    Is there a way to always have the transform options like this (see "Transform with arrows.png" attachment) with clickable up and down arrows? The feature disappears unless you are grouping one or more objects (see "Transform no arrows.png" attachment).

    1 vote

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    It’s not about arrows. It’s because for some object Distribute commands are displayed and they takes the space Transform controls would take instead. What you can do is to press Control panel menu (rightmost button with three stripes) and untick Align and/or Distribute controls to make sure that Transform will always visible. Also, for now this is the only way, Illustrator doesn’t allow to change the order of controls for Control panel :(

  2. Sticky swatches, patterns, gradients, brushes and symbols.

    I get so very tired of having to re-create what I've made or added earlier, or find the original file that contains things I've created earlier. It's starting from zero every time I open a new file.

    It would be so nice to have things I added to panels be there for the next file.

    1 vote

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    0 comments  ·  Other...  ·  Admin →
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    There are several options to make resources sticky.


    1. Save your swatches/brushes/etc. library as user defined one on a disk, using the dedicated panel’s menu. Open each then from same menu in User Defined sub-folder. When the separate palette appears, mark is as Persistent in this panel’s menu, This will make these palettes stick after Illustrator relaunches.


    2. You can locate document profiles (Print.ai, Web.ai, etc.) on your machine (in New Document Profiles folder), edit their predefined presets, and resave them. This will make every new document based on these profile to have your resources.


    3. Save a current document with the resources as a template, and later call them File > New from template. This will fixate the artboards settings though, unlike method 2.


    But be careful with methods, because Ai can reset document profiles when updates.

  3. Ignore Groups and Clipping Masks

    I lost about a Year of My Life double-clicking on objects within a group, inside of clipping masks. A less repetitive and MUCH faster way would be an option to "Ignore Groups and Clipping Masks" (i.e holding some key while clicking).

    The option would temporarily (select-wise) treat grouped and clipped objects as normal objects, allowing direct click on an object through a clipping mask and ignoring groups. An "If you can see it, you can click on it!" approach for instant color and other adjustments.

    This alone would speed up the workflow and, combined with wireframe view, it would be…

    3 votes

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  4. Object position should be able to be locked.

    When aligning multiple objects to each other, all of them translates. There's no option to make one fixed (position locked) and then align all the other object to that fixed one. E.g. a content to a box object.

    1 vote

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  5. Rounded corners on crop tool

    When crop tool is selected, add the live corners option to crop rounded corners or circles. Please and thank you.

    1 vote

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    There is an intended way to do it.


    Once your image is cropped, you can do Object > Clipping Mask > Make and Ai will create and select a rectangular clipping mask for your image.


    Then you have to convert it to a live shape, with Object > Shape > Convert to Shape.


    Then you can round its corners in Transform panel, typing in a value in one of the Corner Radius fields (if they are linked) in the Rectangle Properties section.


    All of these can be recorded as an action and applied later with a click in Actions panel or a hotkey.


    Please test how it works for you and comment back.

  6. We need, again, Custom Bevels in 3D-Extrude & Bevel, please!

    Illustrator used to have the ability to create customer Bevel profiles ( in the Bevels.ai file in /Library/Application Support/Adobe/Adobe Illustrator 23/en_US/Symbols ). HOWEVER, the feature is now gone! Please give us the option to create custom Bevels, again! Thank you.

    Last year, 2018, I created a object and gave it a 3D custom bevel, and now I can do nothing with that object. Whenever I try to do something with it Illustrator crashes. I couldn't figure out what was going on until I tried creating a custom Bevel again. There is no way to create a custom Bevel! When I…

    8 votes

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  7. Overprint simulation on image file exports (JPEG for example)

    I think that it would add great value when Illustrator exports to image file the option to add overprint simulation, in the same way as InDesign easily does.
    I would add great benefit to our jobs and would simplify some steps (not going to InDesign just to do that).

    9 votes

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  8. 1 vote

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  9. Knife tool with Bezier curves like Pen tool

    I like the idea of the Knife tool and I try to use it. It is worthless because it has no control... If it used Bezier curves or like the Photoshop's Polygon tool that would be awesome.

    1 vote

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  10. Find approximate/closest Pantone from a process color

    If you choose a color from the color picker in Photoshop, it will show you the nearest equivalent in the Pantone library.

    3 votes

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  11. Option for object size to take priority over corner radius

    When resizing an object, corner radius should be automatically reduced to accommodate the new size rather than blocking the change until you manually reduce the corner radius
    (toggle in the options?)

    1 vote

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  12. Keyboard Shortcuts for Select > Same > Fill; Select > Same> Stroke; Select > Same> Appearance

    Requesting Keyboard Shortcuts for Select > Same > Fill; Select > Same> Stroke; Select > Same> Appearance; Select > Same> Stroke Weight.

    Graphic designers and pre-press use these all the time and I am surprised there are keyboard shortcuts for these very vital features.

    From a fellow pre-press production specialist.... this small little tweak would skyrocket workflow efficiency! Would love this!

    Also, Adobe rocks!

    8 votes

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  13. Search filed is focused by itself

    Every time I go back into Illustrator, the current version, my cursor automatically appears in the search area in the upper right hand corner. This was never the case in the past. This is problematic because, when I go back into Illustrator, I may want to select a tool or paste an object and unless I click on the artboard first, it pastes into the search window. Just one more simple glitchy thing that SLOWS DOWN WORKFLOW!

    1 vote

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  14. Quick Command for Trim View

    Quick Command for Trim View. I alternate a lot between normal view and trim view but have to stop to select trim view every time.

    19 votes

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  15. Auto live paint

    I very often colour linework using live paint. This is a great tool but if I could automatically colour every shape it would save a lot of time. At the moment I have to manually click every area I want to fill. Could this be done with one click? Many thanks.

    4 votes

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    Yes, there is a way to fill many areas at once.

    A double-click on a fill (or a stroke) should apply the currently chosen color to all sections that has this color (unless these are not separated with strokes).

    A triple-click will change the color of all sections of the same color, no matter if these are separated or not.

    Same applies to Live Paint Selection Tool.

    You can read more about these methods here

  16. Allow Eyedropper tool to copy/apply different things

    Guys, the Eyedropper is an incredibly important tool, whether or not it's "****" by virtue of its age. You haven't updated it in, what, decades? Among the things that it is incapable of copying are:

    • multiple strokes
    • stroke profiles
    • transparency
    • blend modes
    • graphic styles

    Those are extremely common usages/needs. And that's off the top of my head, I'm sure there are many more. Obviously there's no reason this tool shouldn't be able to copy these things! Almost every aesthetic effect that gets added to AI should be reflected in that tool's pickup abilities. Please make this happen already.

    1 vote

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    4 comments  ·  Tools  ·  Admin →
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    The Eyedropper tool can work in two modes: basic and extended: basic picks/applies only colors and text. extended allows you operate chosen appearance attributes.

    If you open the tool’s options (by doube-clicking the tool button or hitting Enter while it’s picked), you’ll see that you can check/uncheck two top ‘Appearance’ options and customize attributes to be processed.

    This is not intuitive, but very powerful once you get the concept.

  17. Install brushes to Illustrator

    Install custom brushes to Illustrator
    With photoshop, you can install custom brushes. With Illustrator, you have to make any custom brush yourself which can be tedious and very difficult.

    4 votes

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    Illustrator for desktop allows to save and import brushes with an ease.


    To save brushes, just save a document with your brushes as an .ai file. You don’t have to have them on canvas for this, just in Brushes panel.


    To load brushes, click the Brush Libraries Menu button in the bottom left corner of the Brushes panel (looks like a bookshelf). Choose Other Library, locate the brush library .ai file.


    If you want to create, save and import brushes in Illustrator for iPad — you have to vote for this feature here: https://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/931888-illustrator-ipad-feature-requests/suggestions/41682511-import-or-create-brushes

  18. Make Document Color Mode menu available to set up as an action

    Make Document Color Mode a recordable action. I have to edit lots of files and they all have to be CMYK. If I forget one, it will look horrible on our website and we might never notice it. It would help a lot if color mode could be set up as an action.

    3 votes

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  19. Contextual Eyedropper Tool

    Currently, the Eyedropper Tool is an underutilized and often counter-intuitive tool that needlessly increases the complexity of a workflow because of its limitations. This- combined with Illustrator's poor color tools- often adds unnecessary time and effort to what should and could be more simplified tasks.

    For example, a common situation is that I have a shape with a fill color that I like, and I want another shape that has a stroke to also use that color, except only for the stroke. Currently, if I use the eyedropper tool on the filled shape, it will completely remove the stroke and…

    5 votes

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    The solution to that would be to activate a stroke if you want to apply a color to it, then to hold Shift when clicking a color — does not matter where this color is on a stroke or a fill. Illustrator then applies the picked color to the active fill/stroke, ignoring the source nature. There are two things to know — the cursor does not inform you about this mode (unlike the Alt-mode, should be addressed), and if you pick a color from a swatch — you’d get a screen representation of the color... harmless for RGB documents (if your color settings are in order), but crucial for CMYK documents (should be addressed too). Pleas comment back.
  20. Ability to set line width based on the angle of the line

    I'd like to be able to set the line width based on the angle of the line, so if the line width is 10 pt on horizontal lines, and you set it so it's 90% of that on vertical lines, it automatically sets it to 95% on 45 degree lines etc.

    In the example image you'd just have to draw a circle, set it to a 10 pt line and then set the thickest point (vertical) to 400% of the thinnest part (the horizontal).

    The controls for this would be simple, all you need to be able to do is…

    1 vote

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    1 comment  ·  Brushes  ·  Admin →
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    This effect can be achieved with Calligraphy brushes. Set one up in Brushes panel, use angle 0, change the size to be the thickest weight you want, and use the roundness value to change it at thinner horizontal parts. If you want 4x difference, set it to 25% of the set size. Done — apply it to any path you want.

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