Illustrator - Rotation of the Artboard

Like in Photoshop it would be great if an Artist could rotate the artboard/canvas in Illustrator. If you draw a line from left to right it's never the same stroke as from up to down.

RVT.jpg 24 KB

746 votes

Markus Steinschaden shared this idea · May 8, 2017 · Flag idea as inappropriate… · Admin →

Completed (Comments Open) ·

AdminAvinash Singh Kotwal (Sr. Product Manager, Adobe Illustrator) responded · Jun 9, 2021

Hi friends!

I have some great news for your today. Rotate View (Canvas) feature is available in Illustrator 25.3 (Desktop) now. Thank you all for your feedback which helped us shape up this feature.

Please note: This update is currently only available in the following countries (India, Australia, Netherlands, Hong Kong, France, Germany, Canada, South Korea, UK, Italy) and will rollout globally over the next few weeks.

Show previous admin responses (6)

Done (In Beta) ·

AdminAvinash Singh Kotwal (Sr. Product Manager, Adobe Illustrator) responded · Mar 10, 2021

Rotate canvas functionality is now available in Beta. You can download this beta through the Creative Cloud Desktop app’s beta section.

You can easily rotate the canvas and change its direction. All your artboards and visible onscreen objects will be rotated according to the specified angle. Like zoom, the rotated canvas view will be saved with the document. We are working on enabling artboard guides in a rotated view and shall be available updates soon.

This has been one big missing functionality in Illustrator and we would love to hear your feedback in helping us refine it further. What do you like? What do you think is missing? Please share.

Started ·

AdminAvinash Singh Kotwal (Sr. Product Manager, Adobe Illustrator) responded · Oct 14, 2020

Hello Everyone!

First up, let me apologize for not giving an update for such a long time. We will try to do a better job of providing frequent updates on our top requests going forward. This is not an excuse for lack of communication from our side, but we have been discussing this request for a long time internally. Without getting into too many technical details, let me share that there is a fair amount of complexity involved in making it work within Illustrator. The number of tools, effects, plugins, etc. makes it even more challenging. However, given the fact that it continues to be one of the top requests, the team has been exploring different approaches to implement it. I am happy to share that we have finally :) started to work on it. There would be some challenges in making everything work in the first release. I will continue to post specific questions on this thread and work with you to define the first release that is valuable and works for most of your workflows. I look forward to working closely with you all in bringing this functionality into Illustrator.

Let me provide a high-level summary of what I gathered from 255 comments in this thread so far.

- It is desirable to have both, but if we must pick, we would prefer rotation of canvas over the artboard.
- Rotating the view is not helpful, we should be able to edit as well :)
- Ideally, we should be able to rotate freely at any angle. But, if we have to prioritize, stepwise rotation at fixed angles may work.
- Ideally, all tools should work but if we have to prioritize we can start with few tools that are most useful in a rotated view e.g. brush, pencil, etc.
- A lot of folks want it to work as it works in photoshop.
- Shortcuts to do easy toggle/easy reset are highly desirable.
- It would be a great productivity enhancer for people working with packaging, editing text, or even freehand illustrations.

I look forward to sharing an update and seeking your feedback soon.

Avinash Singh Kotwal
Senior Product Manager,
Adobe illustrator

Added To Backlog ·

Yogesh Sharma responded · Nov 21, 2017

Rotate canvas story has been added to backlog. We will be picking it up shortly.

Thanks,
Yogesh

Need More Info ·

Yogesh Sharma responded · Oct 26, 2017

Hello Everyone,

Do you only want to view the art at an angle or are would you also like to draw/edit at an angle?

Thanks,
Yogesh

Under Review ·

Ashutosh Chaturvedi responded · Aug 4, 2017

Need More Info ·

Yogesh Sharma responded · Aug 3, 2017

374 comments

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Anonymous commented · August 3, 2021 1:10 AM · Flag as inappropriate

Maybe try restarting creative cloud app? It should be listed under updates.

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Anonymous commented · August 3, 2021 12:39 AM · Flag as inappropriate

25.3.1

I'm not showing any option for an update.

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Anonymous commented · August 3, 2021 12:19 AM · Flag as inappropriate

25.4 has an option to disable Trackpad Gestures. Do you have this version?

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Anonymous commented · August 3, 2021 12:15 AM · Flag as inappropriate

I scrolled down but the only thing I see is "trackpad gesture to rotate view".

I don't have that anywhere in my preferences.

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Anonymous commented · August 3, 2021 12:10 AM · Flag as inappropriate

SCROLL DOWN. There's an option to turn off. Everything will be okay.

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Anonymous commented · August 3, 2021 12:04 AM · Flag as inappropriate

CAN YOU PLEASE ADD AN OPTION TO TURN THIS OFF.

I am constantly hitting it with my Wacom board. I see a lot of other people are having the same issue. I have no need for an Artboard rotation and it is extremely frustrating when it does it on its own.

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AdminAvinash Singh Kotwal (Sr. Product Manager, Adobe Illustrator) commented · July 29, 2021 10:45 AM · Flag as inappropriate

Thanks Simon for sharing. Some of you had reported that it's too sensitive and you are rotating accidentally. The latest release 25.4 has an option to disable Trackpad Gestures. We will work towards refining the threshold but for now please use the option to disable it if it's coming in your way.

Preferences > General: deselect "Trackpad Gesture to Rotate View".

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Simon Bowland commented · July 28, 2021 4:06 AM · Flag as inappropriate

Latest version resolves this. Update to 25.4 and in Prefs > General, deselect "Trackpad Gesture to Rotate View".

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SamW commented · July 22, 2021 1:16 PM · Flag as inappropriate

Please can you offer a way to lock the rotation. It's a great function IF you need it. But I don't, I only use ai on my laptop and can't seem to make it through simple tasks without accidentally rotating. Rotation is too close to zoom on trackpad. Please can you add a lock artboard function.

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Anonymous commented · July 17, 2021 8:33 PM · Flag as inappropriate

Scarlett, actually yes everyone does want this. Real simple, don't click the rotate tool. Problem solved.

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Scarlett commented · July 17, 2021 4:24 AM · Flag as inappropriate

Please allow a way to disable the Rotate Canvas. Not everyone wants this! I don't! and I can't stop it from happening when I'm using my Wacom Tablet.

Please include a setting to disable Auto Rotate. It's driving me crazy. Thank you!

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Mackenzie O. commented · June 30, 2021 12:40 AM · Flag as inappropriate

Hello! Is there a way to disable or lock this feature? I keep rotating everything by accident and it's happening so frequently it's affecting my productivity. The trackpad command is almost identical to zooming in/out making it very easy to trigger.

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Ashley R. Drach commented · June 25, 2021 12:10 AM · Flag as inappropriate

Hi - is there an option to lock to prevent the rotation? It is extremely sensitive with magic trackpad. Thanks!

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timtim commented · June 17, 2021 3:22 PM · Flag as inappropriate

Hey,

how do i disable the rotation via trackpad? Happens by accident too often.

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Matt Rock commented · June 16, 2021 7:59 PM · Flag as inappropriate

@dbiscs hitting the ESC key should return your artboard back to default view.

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dbiscs commented · June 16, 2021 7:02 AM · Flag as inappropriate

Hi, I think there may be a bug with the art board rotate, or I am doing something wrong. I rotated the artboard and now it will not return to 0 degrees (straight) it will only do angles, basically anything but straight. It appears to be snapping to any non straight angle and I can no longer work on my project now as is it stuck at a permanent angle.

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Simon Bowland commented · June 11, 2021 6:52 PM · Flag as inappropriate

@Roshi Kasliwal I'm pretty sure you can fix that error message by updating a Logitech driver on your system.

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Roshi Kasliwal commented · June 10, 2021 9:09 PM · Flag as inappropriate

The update is great but after the update, the error for javascript keeps popping up.

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- Screenshot 2021-06-10 at 9.06.27 PM.png 745 KB
Craig Grando commented · June 10, 2021 4:40 AM · Flag as inappropriate

Thanks!

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Anonymous commented · June 10, 2021 4:34 AM · Flag as inappropriate

Thanks! This has been long overdue and very frustrating, but for me one of the benefits of waiting is how exciting it will be the next time I really need this, and its finally there. Looking forward to that moment.

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