This actually makes me want to revert to inDesign for my designs just because of this 'bug'. The text editing options feel very limited to begin with.

Been fighting the shortcomings when it comes to type in Illustrator as long as I can remember.

still present in Ai 2025 😡

It's pretty simple. Point type is adjusted as if the text is an object. That means that if you manipulate the text box (bounding box) it will manipulated the shape and size of the actual text.

Area type, on the other hand, should not be manipulated when the text box is, because the text box acts as a container, and the area type adjusts to fill the container.

I have no problem manipulating the area type text box when I use the mouse on the anchor points. The problem is that I like precision, and to perfectly align the text boxes, I have to use the properties panel and input specific dimensions to keep things consistent. When I do this, the area type is suddenly treated like point type, being squashed or stretched if I change only one parameter (height, for example). This makes no sense. Changing the dimensions in the Properties panel should behave exactly the same way as changing them using the anchor points.

I reverted to an older version hoping this is only a bug in the current version, but it looks like this has been a problem for a while.

Versions tried:

28.7.1
27.9.5

Come on, Adobe. I deal with this bug almost daily. Please fix it.

Resizing text areas is such a pain when using the transform window and typing precise dimensions. If I type in the dimension I want the text area to be, it distorts the font and I have to change it back to the correct font size and horizontal scale. so annoying when you have many text elements on the page and are working out layouts.

This behavior doesn't happen if you change the dimensions by dragging the boundaries however.

if would be great for text areas to have an option to not scale the font when resizing. like you already can with stroke & effects and corners

If you create an area text field, you can resize the box without affecting the text by dragging the control handles of the box. But if you try to resize the box numerically using the Transform palette or Control Bar, the text stretches and squashes, which is never useful. InDesign gets this right; try harder.

Here is a video: https://youtu.be/0_smiQtPRTw

Still present in V.27

Still present in AI 26

Hi,

When changing the size of a Text Area via mouse the text is repositioned within the available space.

But I also regularly change sizes via the property panel in order to get the exact wanted values. But changing the size of the Text Area results in a deformed type (treated as a Point Type). There is now way to reset to the original undeformed font.

The behaviour via the Properties panel should be the same as via the mouse!

see movie: https://feek.d.pr/Iw3MNH/dbeNydLqYe

Using Ai 25.3.1 and MacOs 11.4

I'm working on keyboard layouts right now, which demand alot of precision - the reason some might argue why I use Illustrator in the first place...

I draw a lot of text boxes so I can use them to mark down the whole space of the key cap. It's just more handy than just a text field where you have to manually align the text to the key cap. >>> Image for reference (text-box-field).

See the other two images (scale-textbox-...):
The one I scaled by hand, having the expected result: text doesn't change, only size of box changes, automatically aligns text in box.

The other is scaled numeric with the UNEXPECTED result: text is scaled vertically, though text stays aligned properly.

InDesign should be your top reference concerning text. This software does so much right, I really cannot understand why Adobe isn't pulling more features from InDesign for their other softwares. Please give Illustrator this little extra professional vibe. It would be very much appreciated.

SMH. Working with text is absolutely tedious.

Illustrator is such a disappointment.

I agree. Furthermore, the height/width boxes in Area Type Options are restricted to 1000px.