Drag-and-Drop Swatches to Artboard
This functionality wouldn't change the swatches palette it, but would allow users to drag a swatch to the artboard and drop it. You could tile several to create a tonal family or brand color set.
Being able to scale them larger, arrange them, reformat the grid, turn the white gap off in between colors would improve color adjustment and comparing hues side by side. They'd function like the existing swatches panel in that you could have a shape or stroke selected and apply the color by clicking the swatch on the artboard.
This would help in color exploration and creating effective color themes. Save common color usage in your workspace set up, export out as a group, share via Libraries, copy and paste artboard swatches to another file etc.

As mentioned before, this got shipped into the main (GA) build, but the development is not completed. The team has been gathering all the user feedback and intends to address it.
Here are several relevant entries you can upvote.
Bug reports:
- Spots and Globals are converted into process colors when included into Swatch Info
- Swatches Info doesn’t work for the only swatch selected
- Swatch Info renders a saved tint as yet another copy of the main global color
- The default text color in Swatches Info is rich RGB black when used in a CMYK document
- Tabs in Swatch Info text are made with spaces instead of actual tabs
- Bottom margins for labels are too small for Swatch Info objects in the column view (with no card backgrounds)
Feature requests:
- Auto-Eyedropper when hovering over Swatches Info objects
- Allow to create Swatch Info object using a hotkey
- Allow to actually drag-n-drop swatches on canvas to create a Swatch Info object
- Allow to quickly enable or disable all Text Options for cards in Swatch Info objects
- Layout for Swatch Info should allow to set grid, not only a row or a column
- Allow to use custom user templates for Swatch Info objects
- Allow to set text format for CMYK values and other data in Swatch Info objects
- Allow to control font for Swatch Info objects
- Allow to place cards next to color chips instead of always below for Swatch Info objects
- Allow to include gradients and patterns in Swatch Info objects
- Don’t force creating a dedicated layer for Swatch Info objects
- Add Preview option when creating a Swatch Info object
Feel free to add more if you think something is missing in these lists.
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Judy Durkin.com commented
Yes. I would use it a lot!
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David commented
This is a no-brainer idea, yes, please!
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TT Kiker commented
This would be VERY useful!!! Great idea!!!
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Anonymous commented
Very useful.
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Anonymous commented
Yes please.
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Marcus Mucha commented
Yes … great idea VON!
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Mark Weaver commented
This would be a very useful function. Please integrate that into your next Illustrator release.
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Jeff Ross commented
Great feature. Vote yes.
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Ken Carver commented
This just makes sense. It's an accommodation to how designers and artists are already working and want to work, similar to placing the sidewalks where people are already walking. It's a simple win all the way around.
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Ruth F commented
Got my vote! This would be really useful.
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Sumon Angelo commented
Brilliant idea and I support it.
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Bruce Colthart commented
YES YES YES - current libraries are good but feel stuck in the past
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f commented
This is a really neat idea.
Please Adobe teams, improve Illustrator in order to ease our work.
This should already be a feature. -
Anonymous commented
Yes PLEASE
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Anonymous commented
Yes!!!!!
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Michael Clayton commented
This would be so valuable! Please add this!
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Sean Ferguson commented
THIS. Why doesn't this already exist?
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Julian Torpedo Strayhorn II commented
Yes please
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behance.com/craducristian commented
Library is good but we need MOAR!
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Scott Wright commented
Yes, please.