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Illustrator (Desktop) Feature Requests

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141 results found

  1. Find approximate/closest Pantone from a process color

    If you choose a color from the color picker in Photoshop, it will show you the nearest equivalent in the Pantone library.

    3 votes

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  2. Shortcut for the SMOOTH tool please.

    N brings the pencil... I need something for the SMOOTH tool.

    3 votes

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    3 comments  ·  Tools  ·  Admin →
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    You can assign your own hotkeys to different tools with Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts dialog.


    Also, you can pick Pencil, hit Enter )or double-click the tool’s button) to open the Pencil Tool Options dialog and check 'Alt key toggles to Smooth Tool' — this will allow to quickly temporarily access Smooth on the go while you are working with Pencil.


    Same applies to the Brush and Blob Brush stools by default.

  3. Keyboard Command for Expanding Objects

    Please. It's so much more intuitive to press ctrl/cmd+a and expand using the keyboard. I work with other peoples files all the time so being able to easily expand their files to make them work is critical.

    3 votes

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  4. Zoom Tool Controls (Fit to Screen)

    Can we make the Zoom Tool have the same Control settings as the Zoom Tool in Photoshop? I design in Large Scale Canvas Files. I like to design Art for Shirt Prints/Broadcasting Graphics for Entertainment Usage/Graphics for Sports Teams.

    This means a lot of Re-Scaling Images after put into the documents. When I Re-Scale the images and go to position them. I need to Zoom In onto the destination of the image's positioning.
    After I position that image. I can go back to Full-Size Image. But, I have to go to my Magnifier % at the bottom of my program…

    3 votes

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    1 comment  ·  Tools  ·  Admin →
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    Indeed, Illustrator does not have 'Fit to Screen' option in the context menu for the Zoom tool.


    But it provides other ways to do that:

    View > Fit Artboard in Window (Cmd/Ctrl + 0)

    View > Fit All in Window (Opt/Alt + Cmd/Ctrl + 0)


    If you are interested in Zoom to Selection command, please vote here: https://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/333657-illustrator-desktop-feature-requests/suggestions/31427962-zoom-to-selection-fit-selection-on-screen-with

  5. Eyedropper needs to sample the flattened color, not the object that I click on

    Many many times, when I use the eyedropper, I wish that it was sample the actual color of what I am seeing on the screen, rather than whatever the top object is that I have clicked on. For example I might have a number of layers of transparency, or I might want to click a particular value in a gradient, but the result only gives me the color of the object that I clicked on. Is there a way that you could hold down a modifier key and the eyedropper would instead select the color of the displayed pixel that…

    3 votes

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  6. Disable Snap to Path

    Can someone please explain to me why you can turn off "snap to grid", "snap to pixel", and "snap to point" off, but you can't turn "snap to path" off. It used to be you could just easily turn off "snap", which would turn all forms of snap off. Now, when I'm trying to adjust points on a path, the anchor handles still snap to path. The only way to get it to not snap to path is to zoom very close in. This is problematic when you can't see your entire curve, because you're zoomed in, and you can't…

    3 votes

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    2 comments  ·  Snapping  ·  Admin →
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  7. Rich Tool Tips in Illustrator

    currently, photoshop has a feature where the user can opt for rich tools tips. Why doesn't illustrator have the same feature??

    3 votes

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  8. Screen resolution of Illustrator 23.0 - Not recognising retina display?

    Just downloaded the new Adobe Apps as an update. All fine except illustrator. It looks massive on my screen. Seems it's not seeing retina display or can't work out the size of my display. Attached are two screenshots. One is illustrator window looking massive and Photoshop looking as it should.

    3 votes

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  9. The ability to save a direct selection

    Sometimes geometric transformations require a complex selection of certain vertices on one or more objects. Losing the selection because of a misclick is so common and frustrating... One should be able to save current selection to recall it if lost. This little buffer can be really very temporary, i.e. stop working if object topology has changed in the meantime. It would already prevent frustration on many occasions.

    3 votes

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    1 comment  ·  Tools  ·  Admin →
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    Illustrator allows to save, load and managed partial and full  selection with Select > Save / Edit Selection commands.

    UI is archaic, but it does the thing you want.

    Please leave any comments regarding this feature here.


    As for having a selection operation as an undoable operation — there is a separate feature request for this you can vote for: https://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/333657/suggestions/34934953

  10. the ability to zoom in on the gradient panel for complex gradients

    the ability to zoom in on the gradient panel for complex gradients. If I am creating a gradient some time I feel like I need to zoom into the panel so I can ensure I get the color pointers as accurate as possible

    3 votes

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  11. Fix blending of strokes

    As described in this discussion (from 4 years ago!) - https://forums.adobe.com/thread/1291256 - in most cases when you apply a blend to two strokes with any profile other than uniform, the intermediate stages of the blended strokes do not have any profile applied to them. I believe this has been a problem at least as far back as the introduction of variable width strokes, and has still not been resolved. This seriously hampers the usefulness of the blend tool and massively increases the amount of time required to produce the desired effect.

    3 votes

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    1 comment  ·  Other...  ·  Admin →
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  12. Unlink assets from Creative Libraries

    After I drop an asset from the library in a document, I want to be able to unlink it, and remove dependencies to an external library.
    In my case, I'm using library to build products that I'm selling, so when I export the products for sale, I need to remove the dependencies to these libraries.

    Any designer who sell his products, or share with people external to a team, would have the same need.

    We need to keep the flexibility of using a library (to update changes through multiple documents), but we need to make these documents self sufficient.

    3 votes

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    As stated in the comments, one can place a library item as an unlinked copy with Opt/Alt+dragging on canvas. To embed linked copies, a user can press the Embed button in Control / Properties panels, or choose Embed Image(s) command from the Links panel's flyout menu.

  13. Illustrator - Trace image and turn in to an editable path instead of shapes

    I would love to be able to take my drawings and use the live trace feature (or maybe even a feature within the Illustrator app??) that would allow me to trace my hand-drawn sketches (on paper) and turn them into line paths instead of outlined shapes. This way, I don't have to trace my images again, once they are in Illustrator. It would be a huge time saver!

    3 votes

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    1 comment  ·  Tools  ·  Admin →
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  14. Keep edit Intertwine editable after pressing Ctrl+z

    When Ctrl+z is pressed to undo an intertwine, the whole object is unselected as an intertwine and cannot be edited as an intertwine, without pressing edit in the intertwine menu.

    This does not occur in other tools like live paint, after pressing Ctrl+z, the object remains selected as a live paint object and remains editable.

    If possible, please add this feature.

    This is valuable to me, because it speeds up my workflow, as it makes Illustrator more consistent.

    2 votes

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  15. Recolor Artwork Swatch Replacement

    I would like a simple interface where I can see what colors are being used in my document and have the ability to select colors and replace them with swatches (either from the swatches panel, a cc library, or by entering values). The current process of merging/replacing swatches in the swatch panel is time consuming and frustrating. Seems like the recolor artwork panel should have this functionality. I don't want to scale tints or use color groups. A use case for this is making sure an illustration only uses brand colors, or if you need to update an illustration with…

    2 votes

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    You can do this using the Recolor panel (the full one, that is under Advanced Options). It’s quite straightforward, although not obvious.

    Double-click the small color chip under in the New column, and the Color Picker dialog appear. Then click the Color Swatches button and choose a swatch you need. No hustle with the scaling of tints or putting your swatches in color groups, it’s that simple.

  16. alt click swatches to add colors to a selected gradient

    With a gradient object selected, it would be much quicker to alt click swatches from the swatch panel to add to current selection

    2 votes

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    2 comments  ·  Gradients  ·  Admin →
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  17. artwork over canvas isolation toggle

    Toggle function that changes the view between showing all artwork in a drawing, and only showing everything that is actually over the canvas. basically, a quick and easy toggle to see what an exported pdf would look like. Exactly like the toggle built into InDesign (toggled by "w").

    2 votes

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  18. Export artboards with the correct sequential order

    I am creating multiple page presentations and often I have to insert or move artboards. When I export the artboards to JPG or PNG they are named after their original artboard number which creates a lot of extra work for me.

    2 votes

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    Illustrator uses the actual order of artboards in the Artboards panel for numbering, not the one you have on canvas (because artboards can be used not only as pages, but viewports, intersect and contain each other). To get the order you need, you should re-arrange the list manually in the panel.

    There is also a request for automating the matching inverted process: https://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/333657-illustrator-desktop-feature-requests/suggestions/44105052-rearrange-artboards-on-canvas-accordingly-to-their

  19. flip artboard dimensions/orientation

    Many versions ago, there used to be a little arrow next to the artboard dimensions that would switch the width and height values. Meaning, if I had 8.5x11, I could hit the button to change the dimensions to 11x8.5. Where did it go?

    2 votes

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  20. Unlock individual items

    Please add the ability to unlock individual items (instead of having to unlock all, then relock all but the one you need). We've been working around this for years, so when I noticed it was available in XD, I thought I'd ask for it to available in Illustrator

    2 votes

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    Illustrator allows to unlock individual objects on canvas, if you enable 'Select and Unlock object on Canvas' option in Preferences, Selection & Anchor Display section.

    Also, you can right click on the spot that has your locked object, choose Unlock and then this item by its name, without enabling that option.

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