This is a great start! I don't know why the size of the rectangle/square is limited. I can't make them smaller than 100 pt, or 1.388 inches? This means I have to zoom out to resize them. I agree with Egor a separate layer may not be necessary, unless this is for a future feature that's being added. Would be great to have control over columns, rows, names, type. If I could have a preset so every time I generate, they fit my specs, that would be super helpful. Thank you!

This is almost good!
Several things to complete:
1. Lab values for spot colors — planned
2. Names for named colors — planned
3. 'Generate Color Info' says more about the legend, but not about having chips on canvas
4. 'Create Swatch Palette' is somewhat better, but since many still call panels as palettes (specifically Swatches) this can be confusing
5. Something in between would be better: Place Swatches Palette (not 'create', since it can refer to the panel)
6. I don’t like the fixed margin for text. I think it should be relative to the font’s size, or the leading. When it’s 12pt for text, it’s OK, but I don’t use points as units, and as in many other places, this default value in point would mean nothing for my layout (as with rearranging artboards, default effects’ settings, etc.). Please don’t ignore Metric world, it’s larger than Imperial.
7. Why not drag-n-drop also, with the last settings used?
8. Hotkey
9. Don’t see a way to create several columns or rows. I see it wraps at ten though — what if I need 5 or 7?
10. Don’t see a way to position captions to the right of the chips for the column view
11. In column view the bottom margin of the text is too little, and text seems to relate the chip below, not above. No, it' should not be solved by manual spacing, the minimal value should not allow this mistake.
12. No gradient and patterns is odd.
13. No hints for options
14. Don’t force the layer. Give a way to use the current one (Same goes for dimensions. Users should have a choice on their document structure. Don't undercut our decisions)
15. Where is Preview? Can we see these generated before we click OK?
Other than these — VERY close! Already usable! It remains just a tiny push for it to be complete! Pleased with it.

Thank you!

Awesome! Look forward to trying it out.

I would like to have something like this (see attachment). I already did it as a script.

It does the following
- getting all "global" swatches used in a selection
- getting all tints used
- calculating the values in different colour systems
- printing each colour swatch including the used tints and colour values, grouped by their parent folder with

@gwintrup, I added you as a voter to the dedicated request about guides 'being more like in InDesign' — http://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/333657/suggestions/37211029

Cool. Did you try my script? That's basically what we need, but in a drag-and-drop fashion.

@Von Glitschka — I also wish they had left the guides alone and not made them show up in the layers panel as an object. It sucks when you copy/paste to a new file and the guides come with the artwork—it totally fouls things up when aligning objects until you remember that it's because the stupid guides are the issue.

It can help to have the swatches on the artboard so you can layer them or pair them up to test contrast. I often leave my swatches in the artboard for future reference as I may return to a client file years later and they act as reminders of how the colors were utilized. A grid in a pallet does not offer the same functionality. It's not simply about selecting colors, but the ability to move and manipulate them. Cutting out the "create shape and apply swatch" step would help streamline that for the people that want it and would have zero impact on people that don't.
Maybe there could be a simple setting in the Swatch pallet for default size and shape when dragging swatches to the artboard. That would allow designers that work on large or small artboards to size them appropriately.

If we need to visualise the swatches in a more legible and organised manner, can't we just create a swatch group and increase the size of the swatch thumbnails?

The team is trying to ascertain the actual need here, drag and drop swatches is just one solution but there can be better solutions.

I don't know what I can say that's not already been said more eloquently, but I'll throw another simple metaphor in the ring.

Say you're a painter. Do you want to open a can of paint each time you need a new color, dip your brush, close it, set it down, get to painting, rinse and repeat? Or would you prefer to have a readily available and highly visible palette?

Not only does it speed up the workflow, but seeing the colors there in a more visible manner can ease the ideation process because you see what tools you have available.

Swatches may appear small and insignificant within the overall Illustrator interface, yet they play a crucial role during project work. It takes me a few seconds to locate the right color or gradient, navigate my mouse to select it, and then return to the artboard. Instead, I create and color a few squares directly on my artboard, each occupying approximately 1/20 of the screen size, and use them as my color pool.

This would be great if I could grab and pull swatches to the artboard at the beginning of the project.

The need: To be able to drag and drop swatches onto the art board in Ai so we can compare hues and judge color values next to one another.

The problem to solve: Swatches are currently stagnant. I more flexible work flow allowing us to use color swatches the way we prefer and make exploration and tonal value comparisons easier would benefit both designers and illustrators.

I don't expect anyone on the Ai team to full comprehend this since you don't have anyone on the team that builds brand identity on a daily basis or works out colors for illustration everyday either etc.

In all reality you own this type of technology already since you bought Macromedia Freehand which allowed users to do this. So in that respect this isn't a new feature.

It's far more useful on a daily basis having this functionality then it is other features you've invested time in: Intertwine which just mocks up a look, but ultimately you still have to manually build it so it's not as useful as it seems. Text-to-Vector is another hot mess that produces unprofessional clip-art quality poorly constructed vector images.

I would suggest have a setting to enable this feature. By default it could be set to off so no noobs won't get confused, but allow pros to go in and check the box to enable it.

I'd want this for laying out palettes for presentations. One way to drag swatches (maybe one or as a group) to the artbaord and have the option to display the color code profile (between hex, cmyk rgb, pantone, or all).

Do you cook? :)

Imagine you want to make a meal.
You open a fridge, you grab the products you need, you put them on the table, grab a knife, cut products, cook them.
Sure, some don’t do that :) They run back to fridge every time (and they don’t upvote this probably).

Swatches panel is a 'fridge'

Take a look at how Von organizes his Swatches: https://youtu.be/aDnoMHs32-o
These are swatches he puts in a template and use across some of his projects.
Sure the illustration doesn’t need ALL of these.
So he 'puts chosen swatches on canvas' — like products — and cook with them only.

Take a look at the video above, from 28:40 specifically (https://youtu.be/aDnoMHs32-o?t=1720)

Swatches Panel can’t have these as large as he wants them to be.
We can’t make Swatches panel to hide some.
There is no way to quickly detach some colors into a floating panel.
Swatches are separated with thin lines and if prevents us from seeing how they react to each other.
We can’t make one swatch larger than other to set a ratio of colors (like Von does even later in the video — see image 1).

This image 1 is what artists do at the image 2.
And Swatches — is image 3.
And what is requested here — is image 4.

Number #2
I think it's about time to take action and make Drag-and-Drop Swatches to Artboard happen, I supported this idea in July 2023, and I can see over six pages of comments supporting this idea. I'm a packaging designer and would need it critically.

Number 2 for me.

Agree with Darrian Bagley, this function would make it much easier to create branding color palettes.

Also, in my case, doing package design for grocery: I send to the production team a "master" file with one flavor laid out, and then off to the side I make boxes with the colors for the other flavors. This way they can hit the ground running without having to come back to me for color choices before they upload into the workflow software for routing.

@Saurav Agrewal; I'd like Archit's option 2. Because the feature is lacking, I've written a script that adds the selected swatches (or groups of swatches) to the artboard as rectangles. But I'm still missing the option to just drag and drop a swatch from the swatches panel to the artboard.

```jsx
// Check if a document is open
if (app.documents.length === 0) {
alert("No document is open.");
}

// Reference the active document, swatches and artboard
var doc = app.activeDocument;
var swatches = doc.swatches.getSelected();
var artboard = doc.artboards[doc.artboards.getActiveArtboardIndex()];

var x = artboard.artboardRect[0];
var y = artboard.artboardRect[1];

if (swatches.length == 0){
alert("No swatches are selected.");
}else{
// Add a layer for the generated swatches
var colour_layer = doc.layers.add();
colour_layer.name = "Swatches layer";
for (var i=0, len=swatches.length; i < len ; i++) {
// For each swatch, add it to the artboard
if ( i > 1 && 5 % i == 0){ y -= 110; x = artboard.artboardRect[0]; }
// Size and color of block
var rect = colour_layer.pathItems.rectangle(y, x, 100, 100 );
rect.fillColor = swatches[i].color;
// No stroke
rect.stroked = false;
x += 110;
};
}
```

People who felt the need for this functionality :

Can you please highlight what is the underlying need/problem that you are trying to solve?

If you want to visualise the swatched clearly, you can just increase the size of the thumbnail.

Meanwhile, Sergey Osokin made a script, ColorToner, that automates making shades-tints-tones, with a great range of options: customizable steps and purity, text legend, size and gaps, preview, adding to swatches, etc.
Worth having if you are into this workflow: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-MK0bEbD78