Illustrator (Desktop) Feature Requests
When entering a new feature request, please provide:
- Description
- Why is this valuable to you?
168 results found
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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 votesRich tooltips added in the most recent versions by default. YOu can disable them off in Preferences.
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Why is the home screen showing all the time now in CC2019. I would like the option to NOT have it come up when I open AI. please.
Why is the home screen showing all the time now in CC2019? I would like the option to NOT have it come up when I open AI. please.
3 votesOne can disable this behavior in Preferences > General, 'Show The Home Screen When No Documents Are Open' option.
If disabling it still makes the home screen show up for you — please make a comment.
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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 -
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 votesIllustrator 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
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Alignment Hierarchy and Auto Align to Artboard
Alignment should work (Like most other design software) where there is a Parent/Child hierarchical relationship. Currently only "Align to left, and top" behave this way. Align to Center causes the two objects to meet halfway between their artboard positions. This is has been a major issue for years.
- Touch Parent object (anchored in artboard position)
- Holding Shift, Touch Child object
- Selection alignment task
- Child moves to parent
In addition, the selection of "Align to Artboard" should be an automatic default state for single or grouped objects. There is no need to have a selection for "Align to Artboard".
3 votesAs per the comment, this can be done by clicking one of the selected objects to define it a key, to make all other object in the selection to align to this key.
Other apps rely on order of selection, and this is something users request to able to toggle here: http://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/333657/suggestions/39711583
As for the Align to Artboard switch — it is useful when you have a selection of objects and want to align all of them to an artboard. In these cases the default mode Illustrator enables is Align to Selection, and you have to toggle it manually.
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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 votesYou can grab the edge of the Gradient panel and resize it, making the gradient strip larger.
Please comment back if the solution is not sufficient for you.
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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 votesBlending paths with different stroke profiles, created with Width tool or picked from the panel, now works as expected — intermediate steps all have correctly blended profiles applied.
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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 votesAs 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.
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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 votesThere are options for image tracing in AI. Extended panel gives you an ability to select Strokes instead of Fills. Tweaking these can help you with that. Please comment back if you think these should be refined.
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can we have a Chinese paragraph arrangement function (Hyphenate) in English Illustrator, which is now only available in Chinese illustrator
as a Chinese English Illustrator user, we are more familiar with English Illustrator interface than Chinese, even though we can read Chinese. It will be really convenient for us to have the hyphenate function, which is now only available in Chinese Illustrator, to be also available in English Illustrator, like Hebrew, Arabic, Dutch etc...
2 votesAs per the comment, these are available by enabling the East Asian options in Text Preferences: Kinsoku Set and Mojikumi Set. Please reply if it solves this for you.
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2 votes
The issue seems to be fixed in the latest builds.
Please check it and reply back if it’s still broken.
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Shortcut/button for the "Enter isolation mode"-function
After Illustrator changed the place where to put pasted objects (before the objects where put in the selected layer, now the objects are put in a new layer at the top), I use the "Enter Isolations mode"-function a lot, to get the pasted objects the right place. I know there is a button, but it doesn't always show. So I would really like a shortcut for this function. Or make a button in the properties panel. Or both. Please.
2 votesDisabling 'Paste Remembers Layers' in the Layers panel’s flyout menu solved the problem with pasting in place into a selected layer, therefore a specialized hotkey to the layer isolation is no longer required for the user.
If you still need this hotkey — please comment.
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3D no longer vector
The new 3D tool in illustrator no longer produces vectors - after expanding appearance even simple non shaded shapes are raster objects. Which is a huge let down. I used to do a lot of vector isometric illustrations and now this completely killed my workflow. Please add an option for that. Thank you!
2 votesThe previous way of creating 3D is still there and will stay there, no worries!
Go Effect > 3D and Materials > 3D (Classic) to access the tools you need.
Also you can enable Render as Vector in 3D and Materials panel, but it’s not that powerful yet as the older method. This will be better in next releases.
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Feature to Adjust (Increase or Decrease) Space between Words
Please add a new feature to adjust the space between words that we can increase or decrease the gap between words.
2 votesYou can do this by opening Justification dialog in Paragraph panel menu, and tweaking the Word Spacing values, Desired and Maximum (Maximum must be equal or larger than Desired). Works both for Point and Area Type texts.
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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 votesYou 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.
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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 votesThis is exactly how it works now — Alt+clicking a swatch applies it to selected gradient stop. Please comment if it’s not what you had in mind.
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Bring back menu highlighting feature in 'HELP' menu
Please bring back menu highlighting feature for Illustrator and Photoshop! In previous versions, you could type a word in the HELP dropdown (i.e. "offset path in Ai"), and the menu where the item is located would drop down and highlight the item. This is very useful because designers sometimes remember the name of a feature, but not where it is located. Also for learning it is very useful.
2 votesDiscover panel now highlights the location for all commands you search for with it. Call it with Help > Illustrator Help or with F1 hotkey.
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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 votesIllustrator 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
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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 votesYou can change an artboard’s orientation by clicking a corresponding album or portrait button in the Control panel. For some reason there is not one in Properties, so please add your votes if you want to have it there
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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 votesIllustrator 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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