Illustrator (Desktop) Feature Requests
When entering a new feature request, please provide:
- Description
- Why is this valuable to you?
4523 results found
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Less bugs, better perfomance, less bloat: bring back your a team on Illustrator!
On the general course of Adobe (and especially Illustrator and XD)
:
- I've been defending Illustrator as a viable alternative to Sketch for screen design for years now within my team. But I am about to give up. Bugs and slow performance make it border unusable and make me look bad!
- Please put your A-team back on Illustrator (and give it the XD engine) OR move faster with XD (probably the wiser option).
- On XD: fantastic vector engine, but you guys are getting your *** kicked by Invision Studio (state-to-state hifi prototyping) and Figma (collaboration).Step it…
6 votes -
Option/Alt + Click to select repeated shape in Pattern Maker and add easier move function
Often in pattern maker, designers find themselves boggled at how its magic works, and tend to resort to legacy features and clipping masks as a solve for how to make a pattern repeat in this feature. Even when used properly an incorrect overlap may appear that can seem challenging to resolve. I am currently working on a hex repeat, that only shows an overlap when tiled at 5x5 and was a head scratcher to some of the team. In general this is easily solved by selecting and moving the distance of the swatch, but to identify these shapes can be…
2 votes -
glow
the glow selection effect to be able to have some form of HARD line which is what I think most of us want to be able to put around a photo clipping so that the background and the product photo can live together. so basic a stroke setting
2 votes -
Attach Symbol Effect
Adding a new Effect to Attach a Symbol would heavily simplify the creation of Appearances (Graphic Styles) like the one in my Screenshot.
Of course a Reference Point and Liquid constraints like in InDesign would be amazing.
And that will open all new horizons of possibilities!
8 votes -
Enhancing the Convert to Shape Effects
The Rectangle, Eplise and Polygon tools had been updated with dynamic properties in CC 2014.
That will be huge to have these properties added to the "Convert to Shape" Effect and to add the Polygon and Star tools to the "Convert to Shape" list.
It will allow more Advanced Appearances and Graphic Styles.
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+Adding the Reference Point:
https://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/333657-illustrator-feature-requests/suggestions/32052073-add-reference-point-to-convert-to-shape-effect9 votes -
Allow to rename attributes (fills, strokes, effects) in Appearance Panel
Appearance are the most powerful feature of Illustrator, but the learning curve is difficult and for Advanced User it's difficult to manage and remember what are doing what in a Complex Appearance (cf. Screenshot where I had to use Colors to identify properties…)
Please allow for all the items in the panel (fills, strokes and effects) ) to get custom names.
It will be more easier to understand Complex Appearance samples and for Advanced users, it will be way more efficient.
Another related request:
Allow to make folders in Appearance Panel
http://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/333657/suggestions/4925735325 votes -
Select objects above / below current layer / object
Under the select menu I would like to see added an option to select all layers that are above/below the current layer. In my use case this would be best in the context of the current artboard.
For example, this could be used to select everything about a semitransparent overlay layer in web visuals showing a popup element.
16 votes -
Make Perspective grid tool work with smart guides
I can't set proper perspective grid without controls of grid snapping to specific points in my art.
Setting this up is ridiculous .
There is no 'Preview' tick in 'Define grid' dialogue.
You can't symmetrically stretch symmetrical one-point perspective grid.
You can't custom drag vanishing lines.
You just can't set is precisely.I have to build everything manually.
16 votes -
Add 'Expand shape' button in Transform palette
You can convert live ellipses and rectangles to ordinary paths by using Unite in Transform palette, which is a nice hack. But the only way to convert live lines to paths — is through menu, Object > Shape > Expand shape. Three precise clicks with long distances run in-between.
Please, add button for this in shape properties area in Transform palette. There's plenty of space.
When path can be converted to live shape, change 'Expand live shape' button to 'Convert to live shape'.
And why there's no command for that in contextual menu still?
17 votes -
Smart Guides when hovering over object and holding Cmd / Ctrl
In Photoshop, when you hover over an object and hold Cmd / Ctrl, there is a distance display. Please add this in Illustrator.
288 votesThe latest Illustrator build (v29.2) now offers a way to see the distances between a selected object and an object hovered over / edges of an artboard.
- Click on the object you want to measure the distance from
- Press Opt/Alt and hover over the object that you want to measure distance to
- You can also hover over empty area to see the distance from the selected object and the artboard boundaries
Please try it and come back with the feedback.
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Allow Scale adjustment when creating New Document
Many times as a designer you have to create artwork that is a fraction of the final scale. It would be nice if you could enter the final size in inches or feet, and then hit a dropdown that would have different fractions of scale (1/8, 1/4, 1/2 etc.) and then illustrator could compute the appropriate numbers. It could also scale down the bleed area as well.
12 votes -
Please improve support for copy & pasting from Animate CC!
I use Animate CC to animate, but Illustrator's drawing tools are VASTLY better — so I always design everything in Illustrator then import to Animate CC. Undoubtedly, the Animate CC team is responsible for some of the incompatibility here, and you would know better than I where their work ends and yours begins BUT…
The single most frustrating thing about working with Illustrator and Animate CC is that you can copy/cut vector shapes from Illustrator and paste them INTO Animate CC… but if you try to do the reverse — to, say, edit a shape using Illustrator's tools because they're…
9 votes -
Allow to add dithering to gradients to reduce banding / improve quality
We have banding when printing gradients from exported TIFF-files.
I have to open them in Photoshop, search a way to select areas with gradients and apply noise in channels needed.
I can apply Grain effect to gradients where I need, but this makes everything run very slow.
What if you add dithering as an option to gradient swatch? or to fill?
So it could be displayed in screen space, applied to current level of zoom, and would export as raster images as well? without slowing down?53 votes -
I would like to purchased out right
I am old school and would love to have a
1 vote -
Paste with User Controlled Placement
Currently paste function tosses the pasted object to the center of the pasteboard.
This causes issues with selecting/locating the pasted object and it is an inefficient tool for productivity.
Like other design software the Paste function should provide the user with a controlled landing position by showing the full sized boundary of the incoming pasting object while it automatically follows the mouse.
This is feature is much more efficient to design than the current paradigm.
5 votes -
Alignment Hierarchy and Auto Align to Artboard
Alignment should work (Like most other design software) where there is a Parent/Child hierarchical relationship. Currently only "Align to left, and top" behave this way. Align to Center causes the two objects to meet halfway between their artboard positions. This is has been a major issue for years.
- Touch Parent object (anchored in artboard position)
- Holding Shift, Touch Child object
- Selection alignment task
- Child moves to parent
In addition, the selection of "Align to Artboard" should be an automatic default state for single or grouped objects. There is no need to have a selection for "Align to Artboard".
3 votesAs per the comment, this can be done by clicking one of the selected objects to define it a key, to make all other object in the selection to align to this key.
Other apps rely on order of selection, and this is something users request to able to toggle here: http://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/333657/suggestions/39711583
As for the Align to Artboard switch — it is useful when you have a selection of objects and want to align all of them to an artboard. In these cases the default mode Illustrator enables is Align to Selection, and you have to toggle it manually.
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Introduce a key that allows to choose alternate glyphs from popup with keyboard
When working with text, every time I want to choose one of proposed alternate glyphs I have to move my hand to mouse and click the desired symbol.
This is tiring. I work with text. Why can’t I press a key to move the focus to this popup, use arrows to navigate to a desired one, and press Enter to confirm my choice? Why use mouse while I type?
Or is it a way already and I just can't find it?Please, make a way to access these without mouse.
17 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…24 votes -
8 votes
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Ability to select & rearrange invisible (switched off) layers and objetcs
It is incredibly annoying when I'm trying to group, move or rearrange objects or layers, only to be told by Illustrator that I need to turn visibility on before I can do any of this. Why?
In Photoshop I can move layers which are switched off with no complaints. It is a ludicrous process in AI to have to turn on a layer's visibility, move it, then turn it off again. And VERY annoying.
2 votes
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