Illustrator (Desktop) Feature Requests
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4723 results found
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Allow users to set direction for X and Y axes
Several versions ago Adobe decided to flip Y-axis, so origin now is placed TOP-left instead of BOTTOM-left, as it was before.
They say it was done for compatibility with Photoshop and InDesign, which both have y-axis going down.I think that breaking people's workflow, deciding only ONE direction is right, was wrong.
InDesign is a publishing software, it works with a flow. I don't know anybody who reads from bottom to up (RTL — yes). When you move an object there, you don't move it up, you move it backwards
Photoshop is raster graphics editor, it works with a readable grid of pixels, which are written from top left (we see it every time when images load slow in browsers). Using Photoshop since version 5 I never experienced any trouble with axis going down, because it just never mattered! I retouch photos mostly. People, who uses it for drawing web-design (!) are still OK, because web pages go down. Anyway, PS even hasn't precise move dialogue controls.
And of course, the fact y-axises go one direction, is just a coincidence (when there is only two variants for y-axis to go — it's highly occasional) — because these two programs care for different fields.But Illustrator is about vectors.
Y-axis goes up in Cartesian coordinate system.
We move objects up meaning up here.
It was a consistency for the sake of consistency.
It was convenient for devs and not end users.
It was a mistake to do.
Adobe should have asked users to vote about denying common sense.
And Adobe should never ever ever had not given users ability to flip it.In fact, there IS a way to make y-axis to go down, as it was before: you have to manually set flags in prefs file:
/isRulerIn4thQuad 0
/isRulerOriginTopLeft 0BUT it causes Move dialogue to be broken (I also have this bug reported). And since there is such an ability and I can flip it in Prefs file — I will fight for an ability to work fully (the worse thing Adobe can do now — is to kill this opportunity).
I don't ask for ruler origin to be changed to bottom left by DEFAULT, NO, Adobe already had given us an opportunity to change this by editing flags! The ideal outcome would be just a switch in Preferences within AI (and a bugfix for Move dialogue that is set upon existing and approved behaviour).
I know quite a lot of highly valuable people from Adobe forums who still votes for y-axis go up:
CarlosCanto (he even wrote a script to undo your unexpected making, https://forums.adobe.com/message/3859338)
JETalmage (you should have seen this post back in 2009! https://forums.adobe.com/thread/497089)
Jacob Bugge and all other people who agree with them in comments.Nobody among my colleagues I know personally likes this. And only two of them having spoken about it at forums. Imagine how many just cry silently.
Xara allows to flip axes.
Canvas allows to.
Inkscape seems to be able too.
Affinity can't, but YET.Please.
Several versions ago Adobe decided to flip Y-axis, so origin now is placed TOP-left instead of BOTTOM-left, as it was before.
They say it was done for compatibility with Photoshop and InDesign, which both have y-axis going down.I think that breaking people's workflow, deciding only ONE direction is right, was wrong.
InDesign is a publishing software, it works with a flow. I don't know anybody who reads from bottom to up (RTL — yes). When you move an object there, you don't move it up, you move it backwards
Photoshop is raster graphics editor, it works with a readable…
52 votes -
Performance of overprint preview mode and GPU preview mode
Hi Team,
Im form a print and packaging industry.
- we frequent work in overprint preview mode but when we switch to overprint preview mode we feel death slowness in the illustrator performance and also checking for the seperation preview is also very slow.
it take minimum of 3 to 8 second to zoom in the artwork
- some time in GPU preview mode we see a red strip above the rulers
Please have a look at the snap shot for our system specifications
and I use Illustrator V23.0.1
51 votes -
Create Tables
Create tables by anyway, it shouldn't have much options, such a simple table (simple borders), instead i have to draw lines to get a view of table.
51 votes -
Flatten / expand clipping group, crop each object in it to the clipping path
It would be great to be able to convert a clipping mask into a crop.
51 votes -
Isometric (triangular) grid
Please give us the option to display an isometric grid. Currently you always have to build one from scratch wich can be very tiring ...
Given the fact that isometric drawings have gained quite some popularity and you see them rather often on websites, it would be nice to have better tools to create these graphics, among them a proper grid.
Gravit Designer already has such an option:
51 votes -
Live Corners should be more live
It's too easy to "break" a live corner in Illustrator.
Compare how resilient a live corner is in Sketch versus in Illustrator. In Sketch, the original anchor point is available for manipulation no matter the corner rounding value.
In Illustrator, translating a rounded corner in any way is highly likely to expand it to a raw bezier curve.
Thus in Illustrator, if you want to edit your path at all, the best practice is actually to reduce all corner rounds to zero before making any edits. Then edit the path, and then restore the rounding values. To accomplish this, I end up annotating my own corners so I remember what values to put back in the corner field.
This is a very tedious way to work. Illustrator team, this is probably my number one complaint about Illustrator right now.
It's too easy to "break" a live corner in Illustrator.
Compare how resilient a live corner is in Sketch versus in Illustrator. In Sketch, the original anchor point is available for manipulation no matter the corner rounding value.
In Illustrator, translating a rounded corner in any way is highly likely to expand it to a raw bezier curve.
Thus in Illustrator, if you want to edit your path at all, the best practice is actually to reduce all corner rounds to zero before making any edits. Then edit the path, and then restore the rounding values. To accomplish this, I…
51 votes -
Visible keyboard shortcuts for actions
In photoshop you can see the keyboard shortcuts for a created action right behind the action in the action-window. Why isn't this possible in illustrator?
51 votesWorks as requested starting from the version 27.3
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For complex artboard setups: Artboard groups, folders, labels, hide/show toggles and other enhancements to the Artboards window
Currently the Artboards window lists all artboards in a single numbered list. The only customization available for the list is the ability to renumber the artboards. A helpful enhancement to consider: Add the ability to organize artboards list into nested groups and folders. For more complex situations, features like color coding with custom labels, and tags and filters could be helpful. To help de-clutter complex overlapping artboards, it would be helpful to be able to toggle the view on and off for artboards similar to how layers can be shown or hidden.
51 votes -
We need custom font filters / tags / folders
We have Favorites in Font Family drop-down list, but that's not enough. Allow us to create our own custom filters / tags / folders and manage them.
50 votesBeta 30.0.0.21 introduces Font Libraries ('collections'). These are synced with your CC Libraries, but you can create these directly from the font browser. Share, rename, filter and customize these to better access your fonts, local or added ones.
Please try it and share you impressions — this means a lot for the team and will help to guide the development further.
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You cannot add a Freeform Gradient to the Swatches Panel
FREEFORM GRADIENT, the new feature in Ai CC 2019. You can create amazing gradients, however, you cannot save any free form gradient created to the Swatches panel or the Cloud Library... why?
Its a great feature, however, it makes for so much extra work if you want to use any free form gradient you create in one file, in another file or project in the future... it would be logical to be able to save this new style of creating gradients to the CC Library and to one's Swatches Panel.
50 votes -
Find Font window panel - expandable/resizable and searchable
Please simply allow the Find Font window panel to be expandable/resizable. Difficult to tell between the different weights on long font names such as:
Helvetica Neue LT Extended Heavy
vs
Helvetica Neue LT Extended BlackThe panel needs more horizontal space or even a tooltip to pop-out the full font name.
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50 votes -
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Merge anchor points
I'd like an option to merge two anchor points into one on a shape/path. This would make cleaner paths and objects.
50 votes -
Add ability to hyperlink text (properly this time)
In June of 2023 the Illustrator team fixed a old bug with hyperlinks added through Attributes panel being dropped while exporting as PDF.
The team thought of it as a solution to this request: http://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/333657/suggestions/40418827 — and marked it as such.I do not agree.
The solution is nowhere final, done in the most basic way possible, merely a bug fixed, like if no-one in the team did try to make it useful at the level of today's standards.
— A partial text selection can't be made into a hyperlink.
— No widgets are given on the canvas to see if an object has a hyperlink assigned or not, and to open the link directly from the canvas (with or without a modifier).
— Attributes gives no way to jump to a previous/next hyperlink in the document.
— The 'browser' button uses the IE browser, not the assigned one at the OS level.
— If I cover an object which has a hyperlink assigned, with another object that has another hyperlink, the area they shared together is overtaken by the one which is below, and not according to their z-order.
— 'Polygon' image map option does not work, the object gets a rectangle area still. The sacred knowledge about creating polygonal image maps in Ai is long lost, and the only mention the official manual has about it is here (https://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/using/slices-image-maps.html) — but it never actually tells how to create these. Surely not via rectangular-only slices. It should just happen automatically, and it does not.
— What about automation? To have the links to be auto-tagged, like this solution for InD does (https://www.id-extras.com/products/hyperlinkpro/)?
— What about auto styling, like InD provides?
— Will we be able to fine tune the look of the Character’s 'Underline' option? Nobody places lines this close to text anymore on web.So yes, this should be made BETTER.
In June of 2023 the Illustrator team fixed a old bug with hyperlinks added through Attributes panel being dropped while exporting as PDF.
The team thought of it as a solution to this request: http://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/333657/suggestions/40418827 — and marked it as such.I do not agree.
The solution is nowhere final, done in the most basic way possible, merely a bug fixed, like if no-one in the team did try to make it useful at the level of today's standards.
— A partial text selection can't be made into a hyperlink.
— No widgets are given on the canvas to see…49 votes -
Please revise the new tool to simplify paths once again
Hello, the new tool to simplify the paths will be great for many people. But I draw my lines deliberately blurred. With the old tool I always set the value to 98% or 99%. But even if I set everything to maximum in the new tool, the paths will be really smooth. But I don't want it to be that smooth. Please rework the settings again. The paths should look blurred, but have as few anchor points as possible. With the old tool it always worked great. Many thanks
Gabi
49 votesCompleted (Comments Open) ·
AdminSanjit Samanta
(Senior Product Manager, Adobe Illustrator)
responded
Dear Users,
We have taken the feedback provided and have released with improvements as a new update (24.0.2) to Illustrator. Please update to the new version and let us know your feedback on the current version that has been released.
We aim to do continuous improvements and your feedback helps us to get better. Keep sending them.
Thanks,
Sanjit -
Make Asset Export settings Per-Project not Global
It doesn't make sense to have global settings for Asset Export, as the exporting requirements vary between projects. Each project should have its own Asset Export settings so this doesn't have to be set up every time when exporting from different projects with different settings.
Changing back and forward is time consuming and error prone.
49 votes -
Rearrange only Selected artboards
Currently I can only "Rearrange All Artboards".
But I just selected only some artboards in my document and I want to rearrange only selected items. For example, increase spacing between them.
49 votesBeta 29.8.0.43 now supports snapping when rearranging selected artboards: Smart Guides, Snap to Grid, Snap to Pixel.
Please try to update and test it.
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Display copies of links' duplicates as instances, like in InDesign
It would be nice if Illustrator's link panel was more link InDesign's in that it collapsed instances of the same linked file into an accordion. The user can then update multiple instances of a file to the same new link or link them individually to separate new links.
49 votes -
Have a search bar at the top that searches all menu items.
Ok, the Adobe menus have a LOT of menu items and features. You guys should create a search bar that searches all the menu items and features to make it easier to find things.
Microsoft has this feature in it's Office Suite and it is SUPER useful.
For example have a bar that asks the user "What are you looking for" They can type anything, for example "Alignment" and it would bring up the alignment menu. Or "pathfinder" will bring up a button for the pathfinder menu.
Think about it guys, would save EVERYONE who isn't a pro SO much time.
Ok, the Adobe menus have a LOT of menu items and features. You guys should create a search bar that searches all the menu items and features to make it easier to find things.
Microsoft has this feature in it's Office Suite and it is SUPER useful.
For example have a bar that asks the user "What are you looking for" They can type anything, for example "Alignment" and it would bring up the alignment menu. Or "pathfinder" will bring up a button for the pathfinder menu.
Think about it guys, would save EVERYONE who isn't a pro SO much…
49 votesThe latest 2022 release has the Discover window that you can quickly call using F1 by default, which searches most if the commands available.
Have you tried it? Please tell us how it differs from what you expect from the global search you have in mind? What is missing or can be improved? -
48 votes
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Make Free Distort tool work with images
Free distort doesn't support many object types.
Please make it work with images, both linked or embedded.
I have to use envelope distortion (with embedded only, breaking link with image) each time I need to distort an image within AI.48 votes
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