Illustrator (Desktop) Feature Requests
When entering a new feature request, please provide:
- Description
- Why is this valuable to you?
319 results found
-
Create a guide trimmed to an artboard
There is a almost unknown way to create guides limited to an artboards — you have to pick the Artboard Tool first, and then drag a guide out of rulers. The resulting guide will be limited to the artboard’s dbounds.
However, we think about it somewhere in the middle of dragging a guide, using other tools... too late in a process!
Can we get a modifier to hold while a guides is dragged out to toggle the global/local guide mode on the fly? Alt is taken to switch horizontal/vertical (and it’s cool), but Shift and Ctrl/Cmd are free and do…
22 votes -
Keyboard shortcut to fit artboard to selection
Currently you must have content selected to fit it to art board in focus. This workflow adds extra interaction cost by having to remember to first select before hitting the drop-down menu to fit it. Selecting the content and art board and striking a key command would make this a lot more efficient.
22 votesIllustrator has two commands to fit artboards.
One of them, 'Fit to Selected Art', requires a selection — obviously.
The other one, 'Fit to Artwork Bounds' — does not, but works for the entire artwork.
You can insert the one that you need in an action, using the 'Insert menu item...' command from the Actions panel’s flyout menu, and assign a hotkey to the action.
However, I believe the request is not about a hotkey, but a way to let Illustrator to 'Fit to the contents of artboard' command? Please comment back to make it clear.
-
Bring back the ability to create a new artboard with a click of Artboard tool, just like it used to work in earlier versions
Bring back the ability to click to set the location of a new artboard. With 2018, I have to find wherever a new artboard appears and move it to where I want it.
In 2017 and prior, I'd just click to make a new artboard where I wanted it.
22 votes -
Stop nag windows
Provide the option to stop nag windows appearing - offering to take a tour of Illustrator, or to use the new tools instead of the old ones. I already use most of the new tools, but I would like to occasionally use some of the old ones without being reminded that other options exist. Especially after the 200th time...
21 votes -
New artboard adjustable spacing
When the New Artboard button in Control panel is clicked, an artboard is created next to the current one. The spacing between these is not tweakable (unless you choose to create more than 1 artboard, to get the field with the spacing active, tweak it, and then change the number to 1 again).
I work in metric units, on 10×10 millimeters grid. The space between artboards’ edges is 7.056mm. Yeah, I know, it’s 20 points, sure, but why should I care about points when units are millimeters? Why can’t I use a value that makes sense to me?
Furthermore, it…
20 votes -
Previous/Next Artboard hotkeys should be able to keep zoom
Right now Ai also does 'Fit Artboard in Window' when any of artboard navigation hotkeys are used. I’d like also be able to keep zoom level when navigating artboards.
19 votes -
Option to "Show Transparency Grid" by default for all the files at all the time
I deal with a lot of white icons/svg and would like to keep the transparency grid on by default for all the files.
19 votes -
Infinite Canvas
I find myself using more and more Figma to brainstorm and create my designs as I have a single document containing all of my visual explorations.
For print assets I go back to Illustrator and create the final file, but I really wish I could have done it all in illustrator. So just removing the canvas limit.
Not artboards or number of something — just being able to spread and spread your ideas in the same place.18 votes -
Create artboard to three decimal places
It would be nice to be able to set artboards to three decimal places without it rounding up. If I make something at 3.125", it rounds up to 3.13", or 3.6785 becomes 3.68. Although I have not had any printers yell at me for my files not being correct, I still am concerned that it always wants to round up to the hundredths place, especially when I'm having to be sure that my materials are going into places where the sizes are set in to be such specific tolerances.
18 votes -
Rearrange artboards on canvas accordingly to their order in the Artboards panel
If you use artboards to have pages, swapping wo of them could be a nightmare.
So:
1. Allow Ai to rearrange artboards on canvas as the order of items in Artboards panel suggests
2. Add Swap Selected artboards maybe, when exactly two artboards are selected17 votes -
Create a Collapse All Layers button (with an assignable hotkey)
Currently you can collapse (or expand) all sub containers by Alt key clicking on the little arrowheads on the left-hand side of the top level container items. It would be great if we had a button we could click that collapses (or expands) everything.
Bonus points if this could be called by an action or script!
17 votes -
Delete artboard(s) with content
Be able to delete artboard with content. One or many pages.
17 votes -
Drag and drop artwork between documents in same place
Photoshop allows to drag-n-drop artwork between documents in same place, when you hold Shift.
In Illustrator, no matter what you hold, artwork would be dropped where cursor is pointed, with no respect to original X,Y coordinates.
I desperately need this!Quite often I have to copy artwork, containing huge raster images, from one document to another. I need them to be placed in same place, snapped on grid, but AI just drops it. The only way to keep coordinates — is to copy/paste in front/place, which takes an EON to do with my big raster images.
17 votes -
Ability to move Color Groups in Recolor artwork
I just want a simple drag and sort option for Color Groups.
When I goto "Recolor Artwork" I have a lot of color groups there and I just want to drag any with the mouse, thats so simple!Currently they are not moveable at all!
17 votes -
search and replace layers / artboards
Add a function to batchrename artboards and layer with suffix & prefix.
16 votes -
Ability to temporarily flip canvas horizontally (mirror view) for design checking
For illustrative purposes, it would be really handy to be able to temporarily flip the canvas horizontally as if in a mirrored reflection.
You would instantly see slight imperfections in a design in this new angle that was not previously noticeable due to one's specific viewpoint.
A lot of graphic programs do this to allow scrutiny from an alternate angle. InDesign and Photoshop do this already of course.
Thank you!
Michael
15 votes -
Artboard Dimension Limitation
One of the biggest complaints we hear from our franchisees is the artboard limitation of 227.541". Why is that the limit? Corel doesn't have a limit. Why Adobe? and why such an obscure number? I realize there is a PDF limitation of 200" so that is another issue.
15 votesThe maximal size of an artboard is limited by the canvas, which is limited to a 2^14 = 16384 points (16383, if you count from zero). It equals roughly to 227 inches or 577 millimeters.
Why this value? Because of math and a weighted decision the team had made long ago about storing coordinates, I assume.
Why is this still relevant? Because a lot of other stuff had been built upon this foundation. It’s extremely costly to make changes to this without making everything else crumble.
There is another request, now marked as completed, 'Remove Canvas Limit' — https://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/333657-illustrator-desktop-feature-requests/suggestions/20395555-remove-canvas-size-limit. To make it work, the team added an internal scale factor which allows 10x larger canvas, by removing one decimal space — which makes sense, since a user probably won’t need to deal with ten-thousands when working in tens of meters.
However, this request is still valid — but please…
-
Set export options to default to the same folder the native is housed in
Set default export or save as locations to start in the same folder as the native Ai file as opposed to previous locations. It can be rather cumbersome when switching to an entirely new project, then exporting that project and having the 'save as' default to the entirely other project's recent save.
15 votes -
Master page
It would be great if Illustrator had a master page like InDesign.
For us who design more then one page for client proofs.15 votes -
Rotate artboard with all objects, when the orientation of artboard changes or directly on canvas
It's possible to rotate the artboard, but the objects are still on their old positions.
I found the is a button to bind artboard and objects for MOVING the artboard together. Why does that not work for rotation?In the mean time I have written a small JavaScript to solve this: https://www.behance.net/gallery/125369255/Javascript-for-Illustrator-RotateArtboard
I hope, we can use a rotation of an artboard with it's objects soon in AI.
– Jens.14 votes
- Don't see your idea?