Illustrator (Desktop) Feature Requests
When entering a new feature request, please provide:
- Description
- Why is this valuable to you?
22 results found
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Make Illustrator multi threaded on CPU
Illustrator performance is awful, its slow and lumbering at all but the most basic operations. It is bound to only a single cpu thread which is ridiculous now in an age of multi core and multi thread CPU's and it has been this way for many years. It cannot handle background tasks and is completely out of parity in function and performance with other Adobe software such as photoshop and inDesign.
763 votesStarted (Available in Beta) ·
AdminAvinash Singh Kotwal
(Principal Product Manager, Adobe Illustrator)
responded
Adobe Illustrator's Multithreading Journey Begins!
Dear Illustrator Community,
I'm thrilled to announce that we've embarked on an exciting journey to bring multithreading capabilities to Adobe Illustrator. This significant undertaking will enhance performance and responsiveness across various aspects of the application.
While this is a complex process that will take some time to fully implement, I wanted to share our progress so far.
Our Approach
We've strategically begun by focusing on the most computationally intensive operations—those that typically take more time and block the main thread, resulting in slower response times while you work. By moving these operations to separate threads, we aim to significantly improve your overall experience with Illustrator.
It's important to note that you may see more noticeable impact in some areas than others initially. However, we want to assure you that this is just the beginning, and we will continue this journey to bring improvements across…
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Lock, hide or deactivate artboards
An option to lock, hide or deactivate one or several artboards would improve working with multiple versions of graphics - especially when you you need to return to an earlier ittaration.
When saving to AI-file you have to erase the artbord (with the graphics floating in space) to get rid of the page.
139 votesStarting with Beta 29.9.0.36 it’s now possible to lock the objects on artboard basis from the Artboards panel, using a new Lock column, similar to one the Layers panel has.
How it works:
- In the Artboards panel, select one or more artboards and click Lock.
- All objects on those artboards lock automatically.
- To edit a specific object, simply unlock it from the Layers panel.
Give it a try and let us know what you think. Your feedback helps the team to shape what comes next.
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Make 'Recent fonts' section in Character palette work alongside with selecting current font in font list
Recently AI made focus in font list in Character palette jump to the top of the list, in 'Recent fonts' part, thus making impossible to browse fonts in alphabetical order — you have to scroll font list manually to position.
This is stupid.
In 22.1.0 this request has been realized:
https://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/333657-illustrator-feature-requests/suggestions/32044567-option-to-disable-recent-fonts-featureNow user can set '0' in Preferences to completely eliminate 'Recent' section in font list — and this magically 'fixes' selection of current font in context.
This is stupid.
I personally want to use BOTH 'Recent fonts' AND current font focusing.
I don't care about it won't be selected…131 votesThe latest Beta Build 29.6.91 introduces first changes to the way how recent font section works. Now Ai tries to find the position of the currently chosen font in the main list.
There are several known issues.
- If you deselect a text and select it again — Ai will still jump to the recent section’s font when we open the dropdown
- The recent section is not fixed and gets scrolled while navigating the list, making the access to recent fonts harder that it is now in the General build
Please try to test it and leave comments.
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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?55 votesStarted (Available in Beta) ·
AdminAnkit Goyal(Illustrator Team)
(Admin, Adobe Illustrator)
responded
- Introducing Smoother Gradients with Dither
No more banding in your blends! The new Dither option helps you create smoother, more natural-looking gradients—perfect for polished designs across screen and print, especially for gradients with colour stops having very little colour difference between them
How it works
You’ll find Dither in both the Gradients panel & the Control bar. If you want to retain vector editing capabilities when exporting as PDF, make sure to select “Preserve Illustrator Editing Capabilities.”Experiment with Dither in your gradients and let us know what you think - your feedback helps us make the workflow "smoother".
Kindly try this in our Latest Beta Builds 30.0.21.
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Provide an option for making artboard names / numbers visible on the artboard (like when editing artboards)
Provide an option in Adobe Illustrator to show artboard names and/or numbers on the artboard / on top of the artboard (like when editing artboards). This visible naming would greatly help to keep artboards organized in large, multiple artboard files. This would be so helpful!
53 votesBeta 30.0.0.21 now offers an option to show the numbers and names for the artboards for any tool chosen.
You can disable this in Preferences > Selection & Anchor Display, with Show Artboard name on canvas option.
Yo can also double-click the name and rename the artboard directly on canvas.
This is a very first draft of the feature. Please try this build and share your impressions in comments, to help to guide the development.
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We need custom font filters / tags / folders
We have Favorites in Font Family drop-down list, but that's not enough. Allow us to create our own custom filters / tags / folders and manage them.
50 votesBeta 30.0.0.21 introduces Font Libraries ('collections'). These are synced with your CC Libraries, but you can create these directly from the font browser. Share, rename, filter and customize these to better access your fonts, local or added ones.
Please try it and share you impressions — this means a lot for the team and will help to guide the development further.
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Rearrange only Selected artboards
Currently I can only "Rearrange All Artboards".
But I just selected only some artboards in my document and I want to rearrange only selected items. For example, increase spacing between them.
49 votesBeta 29.8.0.43 now supports snapping when rearranging selected artboards: Smart Guides, Snap to Grid, Snap to Pixel.
Please try to update and test it.
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Make option for new artboards to track their names based on existing artboards
Create 2 artboards.
Delete second one.
Create new artboard—the name will be 'Artboard 3'.This is very-very inconvenient most of the times.
Make it behave as Layers behave both in PS and AI!
New artboard should check the stack and increment it's name properly.37 votesThe latest Beta build 29.6 180 now does this as expected — newly created artboards track their number and reuse the global counter for artboards, just like Layers panel does.
There is a request to update the names for existing artboards — please upvote it.
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Gradients don't snap to grid or to Smart Guides
I can't believe I haven't posted it, but the search says so.
Since CS4, I guess, when the cool and fancy gradient annotator showed up, the Gradient tool had lost it's ability to snap to grid. WHY? Do you think nobody needs to snap gradients? I need, at least.
It should also snap to Smart guides!Everything must snap to grid, when Snap to grid is enabled.
37 votesBeta Build 29.6.142 now partially supports Gradient Tool snapping with Smart Guides enabled, but for the starting point only at the moment. Snapping to grid is not supported as well, and gradient stops won’t snap at all. There is no dedicated option for the tool to control the behavior as well.
If you noticing anything else while testing this (please do!) — kindly make a comment.
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Support for Windows 64-bit (ARM64, e.g. Snapdragon X Elite) devices (including Copilot+, Surface)
Illustrator and Photoshop support for ARM64 devices would be great. I own a Surface Pro X and would love to continue using Core Adobe apps on that device. 32 bit performance is quite poor.
36 votesIllustrator Beta is now live on Windows for ARM devices (with Qualcomm Snapdragon X-Elite processors) through emulation mode — for the English locale.
The product team is actively exploring the availability for non-English users, and expects it to be available in a future releases.
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Switching to gradient should use as starting gradient color the original solid color
Switching to solid color to gradient, by default gradient should use as starting color the original solid color.
Since imho mostly people uses solid as starting point, then converts to gradient.
35 votesThe latest Beta build 29.6.107 now uses the original solid color as a starting gradient color, instead of white, when switching to gradient.
You can still assign the default white-to-black gradient by clicking the gradient chip in the Gradient panel or a toolbar while holding Cmd/Ctrl.
Try it out and let share your feedback.
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Remember the 'Use Artboard' and 'Suffix' checkboxes when exporting
When I export (SVGs and other formats) I have to check "Use artboard" every time... why not just remember this setting has been checked or uncheck from before
33 votesThe latest Beta 29.5 52 now remembers these options in the Export As dialog and keeps it between sessions. Please try to test it to see if it works as expected for you and comment back.
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LCH Gradients
Add support for gradient interpolation spaces other than sRGB, such as LCH (Lightness, Chroma, Hue). When creating a gradient between non-analogous colors, the LCH color space preserves saturation throughout the gradient, whereas Illustrator's gradients have a muddy center.
31 votesBeta 30.0.0.21 now offers two methods to interpolate gradient stops, similar to ones Photoshop has: Classic and Perceptual.
You can change these directly from Gradient and Control panels, or via Gradient popup in Properties.
Please try this build and share your thought on how it works and what do you expect to be improved.
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Allow to choose if the Save dialog should "remember the last file format used / PDF is set as a default filetype when saving a new document
Ever since last update, if i save off a pdf and then create a brand new doc and go to save it, it goes to PDF automatically when it used to always default to .ai so i forget and get to the PDF options and then have to cancel and go back and retype my file name which is just annoying and remembering the last format is not helpful. Almost as annoying as PS trying to export in the last export location instead of the same folder as the .PSD --- NOT HELPFUL
Mac OS 15.5 (24F74)
Ai 29.629 votesHi everyone,
In the latest BETA 30.0.21, we’ve improved the ‘Save As’ workflow.
Now, instead of remembering the last used format, the default will always be .AI.
We made this change to ensure that your files are consistently saved in the native Illustrator format, which is the most reliable option for preserving full editability.
Please try out he changes by downloading the latest BETA from the Creative Cloud and let us know if it helps you or not.
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Option for Smart guides to ignore objects outside isolation
Sometimes you want to isolate certain objects to not mess with everything else. Unfortunatelly, you can't isolate parts of different groups (but that is the other topic—'making isolation more like 'solo' in AE). But even when you have isolated something, Smart Guides still want to snap to objects other then you want to work with. Sometimes it's fine, yeah, but mostly I want SG to ignore everything else but isolated stuff. Please make a tick somewhere for this.
17 votesThe latest Beta now has a dedicated option for this in Preferences > Smart Guides section, in Limit Snapping area. We can now choose if we want to Snap to Isolated Objects ('...only, when isolated' — the name is not clear at the moment).
This is a WIP feature, and the team desperately needs your feedback on it. Please test it and comment if it works as expected (or not).
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Add Search in Preferences
Incorporate a Search function to provide the user the ability to quickly locate a specific preference (refer to Apple's System Preferences Search capability.)
Please also make Preferences user-friendly — http://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/333657/suggestions/42476344
16 votesBeta 29.7.0.60 introduces Search field in Preferences.
Now we can jump to the found option quickly by typing a name or a part of it.
Please try to update and test if it suits you (be careful though, this build also introduces many WIP change to the snapping system!) — and comment back if you have important notes.
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Allow strokes in brush and pencil tools to be shown in real time while drawing
When you draw lines with freehand tools (pencil/brush), the stroke doesn't show up until after you finish it and release. It just shows as a thin blue line. It doesn't account for thickness so I end up having to redo lines because I can't see what they look line until I finish drawing each line.
13 votesThe latest Beta build 28.7.0.17 now offers live preview for paths drawn with Pencil tool. Please install or update to this version, try it yourself, and share your feedback.
You can always disable this behavior by toggling Live Feedback option in the Pencil Tool Options dialog.
The team aims to offer a similar feature for Brush tool, if this one works properly.
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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…
11 votesThe latest Beta now has a dedicated option for this in Preferences > Smart Guides section, in Limit Snapping area. We can now choose if we want Snap within Entire Canvas (as it behaves normally) or the Active Artboard.
This is a WIP feature, and the team desperately needs your feedback on it. Please test it and comment if it works as expected (or not).
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Smart Guides and Snap To Grid mutually exclusive - please support both
"Smart Guides" and "Snap to Grid" are currently mutually exclusive which is very troublesome. I don't see the immediate connection, even if I want to have my objects snap to a grid I'd still liket to use Smart Guides, especially for creating Squares, Circles and the like.
8 votesBeta build now offers a way to have these two work together. This is still WIP and the team really needs your feedback on how it works.
Please try it — Beta builds are available for your Creative Cloud Desktop app and can be installed together with general builds (the only problem would be default file association — OS can’t tell Beta form GA apart).
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Group all Gen ai features into one menu
Originally by René Andritsch
With the advent of more and more Gen AI features I highly wish that there is a dedicated Gen AI menu item in the object menu where all those features can be found.
And this can and should be redundant as the Pattern fill can be with the Pattern Command (and others where they are already) but they should also be found in this new Gen AI Menu to have everything AI related in one place. No guessing just a single place to look for these features and there will be more obviously.3 votesBeta 30.0.0.21 now has a dedicated Object > Generative menu with Generate Vectors / Expand / Recolor / Patterns, Print Bleed, Turntable and Generation History
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