Illustrator (Desktop) Feature Requests
When entering a new feature request, please provide:
- Description
- Why is this valuable to you?
4717 results found
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Add ability to use fractional values for resolution everywhere
AI is used worldwide. Despite PostScript, based on points, based on inch, being de-facto a standard for most users, many people use metric system.
English inch, as you know, equals exactly 2.54cm.
This gives us, metric users, mantra for translating PPI into PPCM: 254ppi=100ppcmBut if we need lower value, such as 10 or 20 or 30 ppcm (working in scale with huge designs, such as ad bus wraps), we can't use it, because AI doesn't allow to enter fractional values anywhere inside! We can't use 50.8, 25.4, 76.2, Ai would round it to 51, 25, 76.
This will give…19 votes -
Make Ctrl+arrows jump to hyphen too
While editing text in Russian, I have quite many complex words separated by hyphen.
Pressing Ctrl+arrow ignores these and jumps to start and end of word.
Please add ability to respect hyphens while moving cursor with Ctrl+arrows.P. S. If you combine this with reported bug fix about Ctrl+Home and Ctrl+End, it would be AWESOME
19 votes -
Option to put Properties Panel at the top of the workspace.
For those of us who find it more convenient for the Properties to be at the top of our workspace, we should be able to click and drag the properties panel into the default space along the top of the window.
19 votes -
Put all Blend options and commands into one dialog / panel
Blend Tool > Blend Options Panel stinks, nothing personal.
I use the Blend tool. A lot. When I start a blend, the Properties Panel helpfully tells me that I have a Blend. Thanks for that. But I still have to go to Object > Blend > Blend Options to get any options for the Blend tool. What if the Blend tool options would magically appear in the Properties panel while I'm using that tool?Also, the Blend Options panel will not let me make any changes to the blend other than Spacing or Orientation. How about putting the other Blend…
19 votes -
Anchor point Smart Delete
Deleting an anchor point by default breaks up the shape of the stroke.
What about Smart Delete, that automatically adjusts nearest handles to save the shape of the stroke?
I dream about it from the CS3 version :)19 votesYou can do it natively now, by choosing the standalone Delete Anchor Point Tool and clicking a point with Shift held.
This is an obscure way, and you can vote to make it more accessible — please vote here
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Snap shape to artboard or bleeds
When you draw a rectangle as a background color or border, you could snap to the edges of the artboard or snap to the edges of the bleed.
19 votes -
Relative math operations with defined and mixed values in input fields
When you have several objects with different parameters in your selection, Illustrator would show nothing in the input field controlling this parameter.
For example, if you have two paths selected, one having 1 pt stroke weight, and another with 4 pt — Ai would show nothing in Weight in Stroke panel, meaning it’s a 'mixed value'.What if we could focus this field, type '+5' in it, and get 1+5=6 for one path and 4+5=9 for the other?
Why not making it work for similar value as well? Instead of putting the cursor after the, say '2.25 pt' and type…
18 votes -
Effect dialogs need sliders
Illustrator's stylized filters need a more practical and dynamic UI.
Currently, stylized effects such as Drop Shadow, Feather, Inner and Outer Glow have an outdated UI and are not dynamic.
I remember that Gaussian Blur was not in the past either, but Gaussian Blur was updated years ago and these stylized filters were not.
I believe that these stylized filters deserve a more practical, faster and dynamic way of being adjusted, and I took the liberty of creating a UI suggestion inspired by the current Gaussian Blur UI.
What do you think, would it be possible?
18 votes -
Turn off Smooth Tool slider
I'm not sure if this is a bug or I just don't know what I'm doing so apologies if this is no the right place to post.
A few days ago I chose Object > Path > Smooth rather than using the Smooth tool as I normally do. A slider popped up which was actually rather useful. But now whenever I hold option to use the smooth tool (while using the Pencil), this slider dialog pops up directly over the area I am trying to see. Is there a way to turn this back off? Thanks!
18 votesWhile there is still no way to completely disable the Smooth panel when the Smooth tool is picked, the bar now remembers its position and better picks the initial location.
Please comment on this behavior and upvote if you think there still should be an option to not show it.
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Add an option to hide the Search/Filter field in Layers
Search/Filter is cool, but some prefer to not have it.
Other panels allow to choose components: we can pick sections to display in the Character panel, we can show or hide the search field in Swatches, etc.However, the panel does not have such an option in its flyout menu.
Please add one!18 votes -
Improved Layout of Illustrator Options
Illustrator 2023 (v27)
This is a proposal to improve the layout of the Illustrator option.
Illustrator format files contain two different types of data: PGF and PDF data. Currently, Illustrator options have three settings: PGF only, PDF only, and common settings for both PGF and PDF. However, these settings are currently mixed together in the window, making it difficult for users to understand which setting they are operating on.
To make Illustrator options more easily understandable, we propose organizing the layout and clearly distinguishing each setting. By grouping the setting items and labeling each group clearly, users will be able…
18 votes -
Appearance Variables
Imagine I have several drop shadows, with different colors, but same offset and blur values. Now I want to change the horizontal offset for all of them at once. Even if I use styles, it would require me change each style I have manually.
With Appearance variables though, I could have use something like '%h_shadow' in effects’ values’ fields, in all of these shadows, and set it equal to an actual numerical value in one place.
So, once I change it, every other shadow will adapt this immediately.18 votes -
Sync the order of Align and Distribute menu commands
Hey, we now have Object > Distribute commands! No more actions wraps to bind these to hotkeys!
However, why is the order is swapped? Align menu has Horizontal commands first, but Distribute has them at the bottom, under Vertical.
One can object it’s just like the Align panel has them, and this is not the legacy behaviour you better keep, really. Please sync these.
18 votes -
Placing a multi-page PDF
It would be great if we were able to place a multipage PDF instead of each link clicking through the finder window to the same file and going through the PDF pages one at a time again and again to place them in a document.
18 votes -
Customizable splash screen
Adobe marketing team decides what to display as splash screens. Sometimes the choice is great, and sometimes is not, much more often, to some of us.
And since the Illustrator splash screen is what we see often, and it obviously influence our thought and mood, we’d like to have options to customize it.
We can access the image ourselves, all of them are stored along with other version for different resolution screens at
C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Illustrator 2022\Support Files\Contents\Windows\aiccsplash.png (on Windows)
and packed in the application in Contents\Resources\ (on Macs),
but this feels like a hack.What if we…
18 votes -
Search for tools by name when editing the toolbar
When editing the tools that are in the toolbar we are confronted with a big panel full of tools. The recent update that categorizes them and allows for a grid view is very helpful. However, I still find myself scrolling down and up trying to find the particular tool I would like to add to the toolbar because it's so easy to miss it. If there were a little search bar at the top where we could type the name of the tool we are trying to locate to pair down the options it would be a much nicer/quicker experience.
18 votes -
Rearrange artboards on canvas accordingly to their order in the Artboards panel
If you use artboards to have pages, swapping wo of them could be a nightmare.
So:
1. Allow Ai to rearrange artboards on canvas as the order of items in Artboards panel suggests
2. Add Swap Selected artboards maybe, when exactly two artboards are selected18 votes -
Delete all saved selections
There is no way to quickly delete all the saved selections (displayed in the bottom of the Select menu, once you saved them via 'Select > Save Selection...').
You have to do it one by one, which is a torture.Also you can’t just right-click a name of it right there in the menu and say 'Delete' — because you have no context menu for top menu items. You do not like context menus in general.
18 votes -
Create a Collapse All Layers button (with an assignable hotkey)
Currently you can collapse (or expand) all sub containers by Alt key clicking on the little arrowheads on the left-hand side of the top level container items. It would be great if we had a button we could click that collapses (or expands) everything.
Bonus points if this could be called by an action or script!
18 votes -
Making all functions recordable
Corel has had this feature for ever. Need to increase productivity by recording actions and applying quick keys to it. But we need to record extensions, and scripts that we run.
18 votes
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