Illustrator (Desktop) Feature Requests
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- Description
- Why is this valuable to you?
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No existing idea results
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4725 results found
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Blob brush in touch mode
I work with a Wacom mobilestudiopro and I really like the touch mode but the blob brush is not accessible in this mode. It will be really helpful if you can add this brush. Thanks a lot
8 votes -
Why cant a save as a pdf with the option so scale down?
Why cant a save as a pdf with the option so scale down?
if you are working on a shop design and you have the art-board at full size (5666) or whatever it is. I cant save it as a .PDF because its out of range and I cant see a option to scale it down. and we cant print as a PDF anymore...... why are you making proofing so hard?8 votes -
Swap names for Reflect commands
Transform / reflect / horizontal-vertical
function is incorrect
8 votes -
Selection panel - supercharged customisable selection options
- A new Select panel.
*User-defined search permeameters with logical operators, and access to all relevant properties and object types in the document object model. Ability to extend and refine a search by multiple parameters.
*User-defined labels for objects, with which users can create their own custom searches (eg. ”figure”, ”house”, “red team”, “platform” etc.).
This would make me A Happy(er) Bunny.
8 votes -
Numerate / Numbering / Sequential numbers / Number sequence / Auto-serialize
As a function of the transform tool, or perhaps a tool in it's own right, a feature to numerate copies in sequence and/or apply fully scanning bar or QR codes. E.g. raffle tickets, concert tickets, coupons, vouchers, etc.
This would be invaluable as a time-saving measure, and allow an artist/designer to keep something like tickets completely in-house. I've been working with Illustrator for 15 years, and to my knowledge there's no feature that does anything like this. When I design concert or raffle tickets I have to use a 3rd party vendor, pretty much just for the bar code and sequencing. The ability to number things seems like a natural extension of the Transform tool.
MAKE IT SO!
Spok, out.As a function of the transform tool, or perhaps a tool in it's own right, a feature to numerate copies in sequence and/or apply fully scanning bar or QR codes. E.g. raffle tickets, concert tickets, coupons, vouchers, etc.
This would be invaluable as a time-saving measure, and allow an artist/designer to keep something like tickets completely in-house. I've been working with Illustrator for 15 years, and to my knowledge there's no feature that does anything like this. When I design concert or raffle tickets I have to use a 3rd party vendor, pretty much just for the bar code and…
8 votes -
Allow more than 100 artboards
Artboard limits should be a "soft cap" of 100 or more dependent on the user's PC specs. The user should then be able to, at their own risk of performance, increase the cap of artboards to whatever number they feel is necessary, whether or not that is unlimited is up to the user. There was a suggestion to remove this cap over 5 years ago, I believe it is time to make the change.
I need currently 120 and it's really AWKWARD to create a new file and put resources there. I 100% need all my images in one file with multiple artboards!Artboard limits should be a "soft cap" of 100 or more dependent on the user's PC specs. The user should then be able to, at their own risk of performance, increase the cap of artboards to whatever number they feel is necessary, whether or not that is unlimited is up to the user. There was a suggestion to remove this cap over 5 years ago, I believe it is time to make the change.
I need currently 120 and it's really AWKWARD to create a new file and put resources there. I 100% need all my images in one file…8 votesHi,
We are pleased to inform you that your request is available in the latest release of Illustrator version 22.0.
Visit your Adobe Creative Cloud Application and update. If you do not see an update on the application please check for update from the flyout options on the application after clicking on three vertical dots. For step by step process please visit: https://helpx.adobe.com/in/creative-cloud/help/download-install-app.html#CheckforupdatesWarm Regards,
Ashutosh Chaturvedi | Sr. Quality Engineering Manager – Illustrator
Adobe. Make It an Experience. -
Please bring back the slider for the gradient angle adjustment!!!
There used to be a slider for the angle adjustment of gradients. It was great because I didn't have to know the angle or the direction in numbers, (which designers are notoriously bad at, by the way) I could freely adjust the angle based on how it looked. The way it is now, with a textbook and a dropdown menu, is so much more work and SO FRUSTRATING. I don't want to have to type in increments and figure out if I need to make it a negative angle.
PLEASE GIVE ME THE SLIDER BACK!!!!!!!!!
Thank you!
Maia8 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 round ones are for appearance. We need to click to the right of the circle instead, where the square markers are drawn — these are there to mark selection... AND allow selection.
It’s a very common mistake (like confusing windshield wipers and turn signals)...
And I think I know why it happens. I’m convinced that it is psychologically easier to click a circle — that looks more like a button, — than an empty space where a square appears (when clicked).
Recently some accessibility changes were introduced into Ai, and now things we can click in most panels gets highlighted slightly on hover — but not these square-to-be spots! Even when there are square markers there!So please make these more pronounced.
I love appearance dearly, but selecting all in a layer / sublayer / group is a far more common procedure users do. And discovering something called 'appearance' was the source of many problems with art’s colors is not a good way to meet this power.
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 -
Force swatches when directly opening an image
When we drag-n-drop / open an image into Illustrator, a new document is created with an artboard created to fit the image (when possible), and the image is put there.
The Swatches panel in this case is empty (as well as Brushes, Symbols, Graphics Styles).
While it makes sense (image have no presets stored within), for some users it’s extremely irritating — they treat this workflow as a way to quickly create a new document based on an image, with the fitting document profile used (even though if they have no idea about document profiles — thanks to the modern New Document dialog, concealing this aspect pretty well).
Perhaps Ai should allow importing default swatches: RGB for an RGB image, and CMYK if it happens to be in CMYK.
I can assume people might need to prefer their own swatch sources also.I doubt it should apply to other presets (styles, symbols, etc.), but perhaps someone in comment could argue.
Finally, there is a similar request about native .ai files, generated with non-native applications:
Global Swatches for Imported Files
http://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/333657/suggestions/33527599I’d advise to treat them togehter.
When we drag-n-drop / open an image into Illustrator, a new document is created with an artboard created to fit the image (when possible), and the image is put there.
The Swatches panel in this case is empty (as well as Brushes, Symbols, Graphics Styles).
While it makes sense (image have no presets stored within), for some users it’s extremely irritating — they treat this workflow as a way to quickly create a new document based on an image, with the fitting document profile used (even though if they have no idea about document profiles — thanks to the modern…
7 votes -
Copy and paste with drag and right click mouse like CorelDRAW
I hope to see in illustrator copy and paste with (drag and right click mouse) like CorelDRAW
7 votes -
Make USEFUL hover hints for ALL the options, fields, menu commands
Clearly the team doesn’t really care about making hover hints to be a learning tool.
Rarely these actually try to say what an option or a field does or controls: like 'Start editing similar shapes together' for the 'Global Edit' button in the Control panel, or 'Click to pick arrowhead to apply to start point of path' in Stroke panel...
But in most cases the hint is extremely rudimentary.
Try to hover the 'W' field in Transform panel — you’d get 'W value'. W?! Weight? Wand? Why not say 'Width Value', or even 'Set Width for the selected objects'?Then again — why do you caption only icons, but not something like menu commands? Why can’t a new user hover over Select > Start Global Edit and get a short explanation (especially with rich tooltips enabled)?
Why Scale Corners in Transform has a decent hint, but Scale Strokes & Effects — none at all?
Why can’t you make hover hints have several lines of text, if needed?
Take a look at how a carefully written hint for a plugin option suffers from being restricted to one line?OK, if you’re afraid of flashing with large cards (the main reason why people hate rich tooltips) — why can’t you make these hints display a shorter version, but give a detailed one after a pause, like the attached GIF shows (from a 3DS Max)? Two second delay is a bit too large, to my taste, but it’s there!
Why can’t every item in Preferences have a hover hint?
Actually I requested this here: http://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/333657/suggestions/46268617I hope someone in the team just takes time to hover all the UI items in Ai and think a bit. Or scroll through a list you probably can generate... do something, please!
Clearly the team doesn’t really care about making hover hints to be a learning tool.
Rarely these actually try to say what an option or a field does or controls: like 'Start editing similar shapes together' for the 'Global Edit' button in the Control panel, or 'Click to pick arrowhead to apply to start point of path' in Stroke panel...
But in most cases the hint is extremely rudimentary.
Try to hover the 'W' field in Transform panel — you’d get 'W value'. W?! Weight? Wand? Why not say 'Width Value', or even 'Set Width for the selected objects'?Then…
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 much time to undo, and it won’t work with scrubbing.
And hey — look, Affinity Designer does this.
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 -
Learn to link / place .ai files saved without PDF compatibility (PGF only)
I know, why would you. A PDF-layer is basically a composite flattened layer Ai writes into an .ai document, and just reads it when the file is placed: in Photoshop, in InDesign. Handy, yeah?
Not really. Saving a document without the compatibility is so much faster. The non-compatible files are so much lighter (especially with heavy raster links used within). OK, Ps and InD can’t read PGF (Progressive Graphics Format, the one that’s native for Ai)... but Ai can.
Why not reading linked .ai docs as they are and THEN keep it’s PDF representation within the destination file, if it makes the difference in performance? I don’t mean save this representation within it, just regenerate it on opening, no?
I mean, I’m so tired of seeing these 'This is an Ai® file that was saved without PDF...' stamps instead of actual content when I need to link something... instead of generating it right there and now, you force us to import/open the link, resave it and try anew. You can read these! Just read them, please.
I know, why would you. A PDF-layer is basically a composite flattened layer Ai writes into an .ai document, and just reads it when the file is placed: in Photoshop, in InDesign. Handy, yeah?
Not really. Saving a document without the compatibility is so much faster. The non-compatible files are so much lighter (especially with heavy raster links used within). OK, Ps and InD can’t read PGF (Progressive Graphics Format, the one that’s native for Ai)... but Ai can.
Why not reading linked .ai docs as they are and THEN keep it’s PDF representation within the destination file, if it…
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 -
Add a slider to Color Guide panel to change the number of steps
Color Guide panel allows to change the number of steps (4 by default), through Color Guide Options dialog, called through the panel’s flyout menu. Buried rather deeply!
Plus the value is reset every app relaunch, and there is a report about it here: http://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/601447/suggestions/46283755
What if we could have a slider in this panel, to quickly change the number of steps, up to ~20?
Original idea by Tony Harmer
7 votes -
Allow to convert a live blend into Objects on Path
Blends are cool to when you need to create intermediate objects or colors, but these sucks when you need to create a uniform distribution — Ai stupidly uses’ the spine’s curvature to control both the spine’s curvature AND the distribution (requested to get improved here: http://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/333657/suggestions/32403880)
But now we have Objects on Path, which can’t provide any other distribution except uniform one (yet, we hope).
But, as usual, two similar functions remain completely separated and non-ingedrated (we saw this before with Repeat Grid and pattern, and there is a request to allow conversion of one into another here: http://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/333657/suggestions/45233863 — along with 'why can’t we add these as swatches, here: https://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/333657/suggestions/41686228)So it’s a similar one — allow to convert a live blend directly into Objects on Path. This would allow to solve the uniformity / acceleration for blends first, but then it’s just a question of cutting a corner between these two VERY similar tools.
Blends are cool to when you need to create intermediate objects or colors, but these sucks when you need to create a uniform distribution — Ai stupidly uses’ the spine’s curvature to control both the spine’s curvature AND the distribution (requested to get improved here: http://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/333657/suggestions/32403880)
But now we have Objects on Path, which can’t provide any other distribution except uniform one (yet, we hope).
But, as usual, two similar functions remain completely separated and non-ingedrated (we saw this before with Repeat Grid and pattern, and there is a request to allow conversion of one into another here: http://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/333657/suggestions/45233863…7 votes -
More fields to Smart Guides angles
Have you ever required to customize Illustrator more, well, this is a feature that is here a long time ago and it would be nice to have more options: In Preferences > Smart Guides, we should have more options to add custom angles, since six fields are falling short. Is this doable?
7 votes -
Leading / Line Height calculator (more Auto options)
Illustrator now offers 120% as the default leading value.
Changing it requires you to go to Justification dialog within the Character panel.
The setting is global for the document.
Changing the default value for all new documents requires editing [Normal Paragraph Style] in proper Document Profile (and default ones are reset every time Ai updates).Typography often requires more variety than just a value relative to font size.
In real projects we have to calculate leading / line height based on line width, x-height... and also background, color, the font itself.While Ai hardly can do it all on its own (and it shouldn’t even try), having a way to quickly calculate a suitable leading / line height of an area type based on container’s dimension and the font size.
Super wide lines (relative to font height) require more vertical space to help the eye to find the next line.
Ultra short lines can have 100% or even smaller values.
Obviously we don’t need these to be adjusted all the time we change the size of a container, and we don’t need it for each container in a document — unless we choose it. This should work as an option and a one-time operation.
Illustrator now offers 120% as the default leading value.
Changing it requires you to go to Justification dialog within the Character panel.
The setting is global for the document.
Changing the default value for all new documents requires editing [Normal Paragraph Style] in proper Document Profile (and default ones are reset every time Ai updates).Typography often requires more variety than just a value relative to font size.
In real projects we have to calculate leading / line height based on line width, x-height... and also background, color, the font itself.While Ai hardly can do it all on its…
7 votes -
Holding Control key and clicking on a New Layer icon should create a new layer below, as in Photoshop
Originally mentioned by Mohammed Amjed Khan Abro here: http://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/333657/suggestions/41107321
Layers Panel.
Holding or pressing the Control key and clicking on a new layer icon in Photoshop to creates a new layer below all the layers if no layer is selected, if a layer is selected then you do the same action will create a new layer below the selected layer which really makes sense.
The same thing would be very comfortable in Illustrator if that feature would be added in the Layers and Appearance Panel.7 votes
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