Illustrator (Desktop) Feature Requests
When entering a new feature request, please provide:
- Description
- Why is this valuable to you?
802 results found
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Keyboard Shortcuts for Select > Same > Fill; Select > Same> Stroke; Select > Same> Appearance
Requesting Keyboard Shortcuts for Select > Same > Fill; Select > Same> Stroke; Select > Same> Appearance; Select > Same> Stroke Weight.
Graphic designers and pre-press use these all the time and I am surprised there are keyboard shortcuts for these very vital features.
From a fellow pre-press production specialist.... this small little tweak would skyrocket workflow efficiency! Would love this!
Also, Adobe rocks!
8 votes -
Customisable touch workspace.
Adobe, could we please have a customisable touch workspace? The other workspaces can be altered, why not this one?
It could be a cool idea to be able to add the delete, undo and redo buttons to the sidebar menu in the classic workspace.8 votes -
Export PDF with initial view set (ala InDesign)
You have just added the ability set the initial view on a PDF export in InDesign, and it is a GREAT idea. It saves me a Ton of time as a designer as I always set the initial view to "fit page" and "single page" when saving PDFs. With AI, I still have to do this after the fact by opening the PDF and doing it there and re-saving. Can you please add this option to AI as well? Thanks!
8 votes -
Keyboard commands to cycle through layers similar to Photoshop
Please consider a way to navigate, activate, delete and move layers using keyboard commands, similar to photoshop.
8 votes -
Object, Expand — Should be in the right click context menu. Also, the operation should be more robust.
Object, Expand — Should be in the right click context menu. Also, the operation should be more robust. I expand things all the time.
I almost always want compound paths instead of groups of compound paths. So, "Outlining Text" is really just redundant and still no option for compound path from the operation. AI should influence people to be more efficient. An unnecessary amount of objects is unnecessary, especially with AI's ability to quickly isolate objects.
8 votes -
Have an 'Expand' button in the Image Trace panel
It's a pretty crazy change to remove it...
Why have it tucked away in the menus ?!8 votes -
Swap names for Reflect commands
Transform / reflect / horizontal-vertical
function is incorrect
8 votes -
Make Select Art button more evident
I periodically see designers, with serious (albeit cheerful) faces, boldly clicking the 'round button' in Layers to 'select everything on the layer.'
And while the button indeed 'selects' everything on a layer, it also selects the layer itself — targets it really, for applying a layer-specific appearance.
Take a look at this GIF attached.
If I select Layer 2 (with the green squares) like this, and then apply the Round Corners effect, all the new squares in the layer will have round corners.
Sure, everything is visible in the Appearance palette.
Sure, everything is written in the pop-up hints.The…
7 votes -
Layout for Swatch Info should allow to set grid, not only a row or a column
Creation dialog for Swatch Info object currently allows to choose between having it as a row or a column... great, when you have 5. Not great if there are 20 — it’s either a stupid long row, or a stupid tall column.
Add another value there to wrap these, to form a grid!
Make sure you also allow to set the layout order properly, like the Rearrange All Artboards dialog uses (RTL is a thing).7 votes -
Add a slider to the History panel to quickly review the states of the document
If we want to go back to a certain history state of the current document , we can scroll the History panel and click each step item, guessing the time, judging by the names of these, the scrollbar position (limited by the capped amount of steps)...
It’s a guesswork in most cases, since some steps still have generic names (like always 'Move' and not 'Move Point', 'Move Handle', 'Move Segment', 'Move Path', 'Move Group'...)Can I just grab a slider and scrub with it, seeing all the previous states rendered on canvas — and fast? Today Ai sometimes takes too…
7 votes -
Bring back Duplicate button in the Contextual Task Bar
It would be very useful to bring back the repeat / duplicate icon in the Contextual Task Bar -- specifically when selecting shapes. Illustrator 2024 had this feature when a shape was selected. The 2025 update removed this feature.
Please bring this back, or allow users to customize the Conceptual Task Bar in the settings.
7 votes -
How do we add copy and paste to the right click menu?
How do we add copy and paste to the right click menu?
In almost all Adobe products copy and paste are in the right click menu but I can't find a way to turn them on in Illustrator. How do I get them to show up or even request an update to the program if they aren't in the program for some strange reason. Why would they be left out? Can we also use scripting to add other useful commands to the menu to save time while we work?
7 votesIn case you missed it, latest Ai versions now do have Cut, Copy, Paste (all subcommands) in the context menus.
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Remove restrictions to useable keyboard shortcuts (e.g. Ctrl + Key for non-tools)
It would be great if the restrictions put in place for keyboard shortcuts regarding non-tools could be changed to include single key shortcuts (like tools). There is no valid reason that any of the File/ Edit/ Object/ Type/ Select/ Effect/ View/ Window shortcuts require using the Ctrl key. Indesign does this already just like many non-Adobe programs. It's time to change this.
7 votes -
Feature to export custom Keyboard Shortcuts
Those of us that frequently customize our Key commands and want to easily transfer them to other versions of Illustrator.
7 votes -
Layers Panel: Layers Name Available Width
I like my Layers Panel thumbnails to be large, like really large, larger than 'Large' for sure, so that i can easily see what's going on. I also like to name my layers briefly but accurately for the same reason. I don't have a big, wide screen however, so for me every tiny width saving matters. And here i come to the thing that infuriates me: why does Illustrator already trim layers names when there is still plenty room for them to be displayed in full?
7 votes -
Scrollable Panels and Tools
I want to be able to scroll panel and tool windows.
Panels:
I want to keep my most-used panels open in a scrollable sidebar rather than having to expand and collapse them. Generally speaking, expanding a tool collapses another. This leads to unnecessary clicks and movement. Unless I choose to collapse a panel, it should remain open — respect my intention! I expect panels to remain in the same place I left them, not shift up or down according to which panel was opened last.Tools:
On a small screen, the single-column toolbar gets cut off by the application frame,…7 votes -
Since you're not maintaining Illustrator, open-source it.
Year after year, we ask for simple but glaring deficiencies to be fixed. But NOTHING is fixed.
Top example: There's no way to force Illustrator to select ONLY the objects that are FULLY ENCLOSED by the selection rectangle. I don't know of any other vector-art program that lacks this feature, and some even use it by default.
Yes, we've reported this problem. Yes, we voted for the feature request. Year after year after year.
I bought Affinity Designer because I consider Illustrator unusable with this defect. And that's after years of running Corel Draw in a VM to, again, avoid…
7 votes -
The "Align" tool doesn't align
So the align tools is organized like this:
Align Objects:
Vertical alignment tools Horizontal alignment toolsDistribute Objects:
Horizontal distrib. tools Vertical distrib. toolsIt confuses me each time. Why aren't the vertical tools both on the left, and both the horizontal tools on the right? Each time I use it I have to stop for a second and think about it before jumping horizontally to the tool I actually want. Please put the vertical alignment and distribution tools on the left, and the horizontal alignment and distribution tools on the right!
7 votes -
Voice activated commands
What if all your basic commands could be said aloud? For example:
"File, save, export, save for web, jpg, 72 dpi, save, save to X folder..." or "select same fill color and stroke color, change to PMS246, object ungroup, select tool, select Layer 1, add 2 point white outline"Why would this be cool?
I am the worst at remembering short keys or using short keys and I'm sure not the only one. When software gets updated, sometimes things get moved in menus and that can be frustrating. I can say the commands faster than I can point, click or…
7 votes -
Annoying "learn more"
Your instruction and tutorial always pop up and ask me to "learn more". I know the functions already. It is very annoying and I don't want to use Illustrator anymore if I have any alternative.
I cannot find how to close the pop-up and it affects my efficiency a lot. Disturb me every 5 min. It is a very very poor UX experience.
6 votes
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