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Illustrator (Desktop) Feature Requests

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4594 results found

  1. Allow to quickly define new custom arrowheads

    I use custom arrow heads for a lot of projects and would like an easier interface for creating and managing custom arrow heads. I want to be able to rearrange the order of the arrow heads available as well as have fine grained control over how the arrow head will scale with stroke size. Non-symmetrical arrow head support is important to my work as well.

    Also, I really want to be able to place an arrow head at one end of a path at the tip and have the arrow head at the other end extend beyond the end of…

    11 votes
    4 comments  ·  Strokes  ·  Admin →
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  2. Select objects in Layers panel by dragging through items (or target or selection markers) with a modifier held

    In older versions of Illustrator you could go to the layer panel and Cmd/Ctrl drag on the circle icons to select multiple objects really fast. Would love to have this back as it wasn't replaced with anything else and a lot of times I need to select objects on the layer panel and not the canvas.

    11 votes
    4 comments  ·  Layers  ·  Admin →
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  3. Add CAD path creation/modification tools

    Some wonderful tools that would help are Trim, Extend, and Corner tools.

    Trim allows you to stop a line at another line. So if you drew a + you could trim the top to the - and make a T.

    Extend does the opposite. It makes a line longer until it hits a target line. It turns |- into a T (rotated).

    Corner tool trims or extends two lines as need to make a corner. |- becomes L by clicking both lines.

    Look to AutoCad or Revit for examples.

    11 votes
    1 comment  ·  Tools  ·  Admin →
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  4. Opening Multi-Page PDFs should have a larger preview or scalable preview

    The Open PDF window box that comes up when you try to open a Multi-Page PDF should have a larger preview. In the Open PDF window much of the text can be garbled, which doesn't help if you are not sure which page of a 49 page document you need to open.

    11 votes
    0 comments  ·  File Save, Import and Export  ·  Admin →
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  5. An option to affect fonts that are hidden or locked with Find/Replace

    When finding lost fonts or replacing fonts can you PLEASE let AI change/replace fonts that are hidden or on a locked layer. Or at least give us an option to.

    11 votes
    4 comments  ·  Type, Fonts, Text  ·  Admin →
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  6. Restrict Pan to work only Horizontally / Vertically with a Shift modifier

    I'd love if there was a key we could hold down to restrict the hand tool to only pan perfectly vertical or horizontal. Would make it easier to develop for web — you could quickly get a sense of how a site would work when the user scrolls.

    11 votes
    1 comment  ·  Tools  ·  Admin →
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  7. Ability to export to PSD but retain folders and layers

    Ability to export to PSD but retain folders and layers. Critical for taking artwork prepared for Character Animator from Illustrator to Photoshop in order to use tools such as puppet warp to create easy frame by frame animations.

    11 votes
    0 comments  ·  File Save, Import and Export  ·  Admin →
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  8. Treat groups as a result of Unite and not Intersect when using as a clipping mask

    If we put a group on top of some art, select them together and create a clipping mask from this top group and the art below, usually we won’t see anything, as if it does not work.

    We expect Illustrator to treat the group as a result of Unite operation, but actually it is Intersected instead. This is hardly useful. and if we wanted to use an intersection of parts, we’d clip with a compound intersecting shape probably.

    Please give us a way a to choose the default treatment for a group used as a clipping mask. I assume it…

    10 votes
    3 comments  ·  Clipping, Intertwine  ·  Admin →
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  9. Allow to use point-specific controls and functions when all points of a path are selected

    There is a limitation in Adobe Illustrator with aligning anchor points.
    When using the Direct Selection tool to highlight anchor points on a path the options to align anchor points disappears in the Align palette if all points on a path are selected.
    That can be a problem if I'm trying to align two points on a simple two point path. I either have to add additional points or manually align the path using smart guides. It would be really nice if one anchor point could have key object like behavior and stay locked in place. Certain rival vector graphics…

    10 votes
    3 comments  ·  Align, Distribute  ·  Admin →
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  10. Display artboard captions when exporting artboards

    Every time when i have multiple artboards and hit Save As, Ii don't know exactly which artboards i want to include, cause i don't know the specific number.
    So i go back out of the save as dialog, pick the Artboard Tool and save again, now able to see which numbers i want to include. I would be less time consumption if it would show the numbers of the artboards always no matter which tool is selected, when there is a save as or export dialog started.

    10 votes
    1 comment  ·  Documents and Artboards  ·  Admin →
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  11. Chained dimensions

    New Dimension tool is designed to be good-enough, but not be way too complex to setup and use.

    One of things we need to be a part of this 'good-enough' set of features it has should be a way to create consequential serialized dimensions, like the image attached demonstrates.

    To do that now, we’d have to drag each segment one-by-one, and snap the dimensions line to each other (which in the current build just doesn’t happen even!). This method is generates doubled lines instead of only one, and won’t allow us to move all the dimension lines at once if…

    10 votes
    0 comments  ·  Tools  ·  Admin →
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  12. Isolation tints eyedropper colors from linked assets

    When using the eyedropper tool in isolation mode on artwork, the color is taken from the actual artwork even though isolation mode displays it as faded. When doing the same on linked assets, even if they are Illustrator files, the isolation mode fade gets applied to the sampled color. This means that you have to back out of isolation mode and direct-select it to sample the asset, or otherwise have already created a swatch before entering isolation.

    I think it would be nicer if Illustrator could treat the sampling of linked assets the same way it does for local artwork…

    10 votes
    1 comment  ·  Isolation  ·  Admin →
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  13. Live Free Distort

    I would like to see the "Free Distort" effect be extended to work on the actual object, not going through a tiny dialog box that feels like I'm trying to apply it to a postage stamp. It's really difficult to apply a distorted shape to a larger area when I am guessing if a 1-pixel move of a tiny handle is going to make a difference or not. It would be amazing if four independent handles were on the actual art and allow me to move the corners exactly to the spot I want to place them at. It's a…

    10 votes
    4 comments  ·  Effects, Appearance, Graphic Styles  ·  Admin →
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  14. Share for Review Notifications: comments and updates

    It would be amazing if a "notification" could be added to the "Share for Review" feature. I am having to update the link and also send an update email to my clients and collabs. Thank you!!

    10 votes
    4 comments  ·  Cloud, Libraries  ·  Admin →
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  15. Can't undo Auto bullets

    If I undo the bullets (which came automatic after space bar) the letter disappear.

    For example: I can't use (-) at front of text with 1 spacebar.

    10 votes
    2 comments  ·  Type, Fonts, Text  ·  Admin →
    How important is this to you?

  16. Sort menus alphabetically when Cmd+Opt+Shift / Ctrl+Alt+Shift, like in InDesign

    Illustrator has a lot of things put in menus.
    The sorting order in some (like View or Object) can be unobvious for new users (and surely some older ones as well).

    InDesign allows to sort menus temporarily by holding Cmd+Opt+Shift / Ctrl+Alt+Shift while clicking one — make Ai do the same!

    An interesting thing is — helpx.adobe.com does not know about it at all. Another sacred technique :/ Terry White figured it out somewhere, but where did he get it from? ...accidentally?

    10 votes
    0 comments  ·  User Interface  ·  Admin →
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  17. Highlight selected segments

    Ai fails at displaying selected segments.
    Here, in the GIF, both selections look identical — until I move the partially selected art. Only then I notice that the diagonal segment was selected in the left shape.

    This is a core and tough problem to solve, but it does not mean it’s OK to have it, because it leads to many errors often enough.

    10 votes
    0 comments  ·  Selection  ·  Admin →
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  18. Add Plus buttons as the sides of a selected artboard to quickly add new artboards

    Photoshop displays nice (+) buttons to allow users to add new artboards to any side of a current one.

    In Illustrator, Add buttons exist only in Control and Properties, and always add an artboard next in a row.

    Not fair.
    And if you add these new Add buttons — allow to disable them too. Some will disagree on having extra fluff on canvas.

    Mockup image by Oleg Krasnov

    10 votes
    3 comments  ·  Documents and Artboards  ·  Admin →
    How important is this to you?

  19. Disable smart guides to some specific object/layer

    Hi there,

    After using Illustrator for quite some time, I found there has one function I need the most.
    Which is to disable smart guides to some specific object/layer.

    Smart guides are amazing but I found that they won't work well if I had a crazy vector texture background.
    When I try to align to the main object I am working on, it will just try to align to background vector textures. Which is not ideal.

    So I have been thinking, could there have a feature, that disables smart guides to some specific object/layer, like we can lock anything that…

    10 votes
    2 comments  ·  Snapping  ·  Admin →
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  20. Assign colors to artboard names in Artboards panel

    Assign colors to artboard names in Artboards panel, just like the way we can assign color to layers

    10 votes
    1 comment  ·  Documents and Artboards  ·  Admin →
    How important is this to you?
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