This is a screenshot from Photoshop. It's as simple as that, the rulers are always shown by default when the option Rulers is selected. Could you please enable this in Illustrator?

I've just spent almost an hour speaking with Adobe support (via the 'Contact Us' chat system on their home page - might be worth try?) and I don't think they actually understand what is wrong with the solution they've delivered. After 45 mins of explaining that I'm not happy with the level of communication and support since Feb 4th (and the solution they delivered) I've just been asked to quit all apps, reset my prefs and restart my machine! I honestly think there's a total breakdown of communication - I don't think they know what's wrong with the feature request they've given us, or they simply don't care that they've misinterpreted it.

Hi there, thank you for taking the time to look at this request, however the problem has not yet been resolved. Please could you adhere to the original suggestion to automatically have the rulers visible when opening up the program, always.
As someone below stated, as far as we know, every designer always needs the rulers. For those working on Illustrator the whole day, this becomes an annoyance.

Hi Bulent

Thank you for your suggestion but that solution doesn't work. If you turn rulers on or off you cannot save the document to write over the existing profile. If you make any changes which allow you to re-save the profile, you simply get an error when trying to save. See my attachment.

Additionally, it sounds like this solution wouldn't solve the issue of opening legacy files, just new projects?

Sorry if this solution is shared before me because i did not read all comments :))

If you want your new documents with rulers, please do as follows:
Navigate to the folder /Applications/Adobe Illustrator 2020/Support Files/New Document Profiles/Language and open the necessary .ai file in this folder (for instance Print.ai). Make any changes you want, like show rulers, and save and close the document. From now on all your new print documents will be opened with rulers.

This solution is alsow available for Windows but i do not know the correct folder path.

Neeraj Nandkeolyar:

As others stated. That's not the "feature" that's being requested (I put "feature" in quotation marks, because it's a such a basic simple thing that can't be considered a feature really). We want NEW DOCUMENTS TO HAVE RULERS ON BY DEFAULT. Everyone is tired of pressing ctrl-R every single time we start a new document.

In over 20 years of using Illustrator, there has never, ever been a single time where not having rulers around the perimeter of the work area is preferable to having them. We are all SICK AND TIRED of having to press a command key with every single time we start a new document!

For the love of whichever God you follow, please sort this out properly or remove your 'completed' status until this feature has been built and integrated properly. Or should we set up a new feature request and hassle you through another channel? This is absolutely typical of Adobe - no proper customer support or communication and not listening properly when we do ask for a practical feature. You've clearly added a preference that you guys feel we need, not a feature that we'll actually find useful. Unless you keep your application open, this new option is absolutely useless because you still have to switch Rulers on when you first open a project. Can you please explain the thinking behind your solution rather than the one we have requested? Personally, I don't think the team can do what we actually want and have introduced a bit of a band-aid effort to placate our frustrations. It's all rather sad and predictable - I would have been surprised if we'd actually received an update with something we'd actually make use of.

Dear Neeraj,

You're killin me Smalls.
Look, I made you a visual aid. Rulers should be on by default.

Uh.... UNCOMPLETED. You had one job.

The solution you have implemented is not working in so far as it doesn't resolve the issue.

Like other apps (photoshop, Indesign), we need the option for rulers to be set to always on; irrespective of whether any documents are open or not.

In Indesign (CC20), this is available from the view menu and or as the shortcut cmd+R (mac) - it is possible to toggle this whether documents are open or closed. We would like you to apply the same functionality in Illustrator.

Neeraj - This HAS NOT been resolved/completed as per the original feature request. Every time you quit the programme and reopen it the rulers defaults back to OFF, which is now even more frustrating because if we want to keep them ON across all files we now have the rigmarole of going to Preferences to do so, or keeping Illustrator permanently open. It's a pointless waste of effort and an even more protracted way of working. Is there some kind of communication barrier issue here? Do you not understand what we're asking for? Please undo your completed status as you clearly have not added what we have all voted for.

Hi Neeraj Nandkeolyar, this request HAS NOT BEEN COMPLETED. Can you please undo your completed status? As Bagha Shams has pointed out showing rulers across documents and just having rulers on by default (like InDesign, Coral Draw, MS Word!) are two completely different things.

Some free feed back for the AI devs as well. This issue has been a major over sight for a very long time. There are a tonne of useless features that have been stuffed into AI (hello Perspective Grid Tool & CC Libraries - I'm looking at you).

It would be nice if for just once, AI could introduce a simple change that your customers ask for.

Hi Neeraj Nandkeolyar, can you please remove your premature "completed" status? You did not at all address the issue. The issue here is very clear: Show rulers by default. This has nothing to do with showing rulers across documents. I don't know how you can conflate these very different issues.

Any solution on that? I hat that my files don't open with rulers anymore in InDesign...!! Arrrggghhhhhh

Yes, I do know they have it by default, but I prefer Illustrator. Besides it’s not hard to change it programmatically. We shouldn’t have to go somewhere else. This isn’t a major decision. It won’t effect people who don’t need the rulers on, but everyone else would benefit from it.

Do you guys know that you can set Rulers to show by default on CorelDRAW right?

¿quizás si les pedimos en español que tengan una opción de regla predeterminada, entenderán que hablamos en serio? (translated: perhaps if we ask them in Spanish to have a default ruler option they will understand we are serious about it?)

Preference for rulers upon opening new documents, please!

any day now some combo of non-subscription tools will make this request obsolete. For now, please give me show rulers by default. Or let this knuckledragger know where to find the right option please.

Please! Rulers are essential for the work. How come it's been more than two years since this simple request has been made and yet you still forget to add it?