Participant

Answered

How to resize my Canvas in Illustrator

Forum|Forum|15 years ago
July 30, 2010
22 replies
1445287 views

Hello,

can anyone help me out. I would like to rezise my canvas in Illustrator and I dont know how to do that!

Why: I'de like to fit my AI design on to an other AI, real size object and the Illustrator canvas is to small to handle the design in a proper way. So my design is to large to fit the real obeject. the question is therefor how can I make my Canvas larger?

Hope for your support and help.

Thanks

Gert van de Cappelle

How to

Correct answer Eric23155489ll2s

Here's a link to resize your Canvas (not artboard) in Illustrator.

Enjoy.

Show previous replies

M

metcat29

Participant

Hey guys I found a real easy solution that I hope is what you were looking for:

Go to Object - Artboards then choose to fit to artwork bounds or fit to selected art

Cheers

aTomician

Inspiring

Hello Metcat29 - take a look at Jussol's post above, it shows the difference between the artboard & canvas... it's the canvas we are struggling with (I think Adobe may be struggling with it too ) - the artboards appear within the canvas...

Regards, aTomician

PenCreation

Participant

Try clicking the "Document Set up" button on the top right hand side of the top tool bar.
Then click "Edit Artboard."
You can either manually change it by clicking and dragging the edges or type in the measurements in the width & height options in the top tool box.

aTomician

Inspiring

if you look carefully at the title, this is about changing canvas size, not artboard! - artboards are held within the canvas

Regards, aTomician

F

figmo

Participant

In Illustrator, what a Photoshop user would call the "Canvas" is called the "Artboard." Basically, "Canvas" is to Photoshop as "Artboard" is to Illustrator.

I don't know why they use different terminologies to refer to what is essentially the same concept, but they do.

aTomician

Inspiring

can't we petition Adobe to allow the canvas size to be changed? it is incredibly annoying, i'm trying to design wallpaper that is several metres across and the only way to do it is either make it a quarter of the size and scale it up, or else find another program... and after purchasing creative cloud for a "professional" set of programs, i'm not really looking to get every design program in the world just becuase Illustrator isn't that professional after all. i have a desktop PC with 16GB ram and it could probably cope with a canvas size the size of a football pitch - however for some reason, no one can change this and Adobe would prefer that we go their competitors who offer better options? or else they make Illustrator open source and we just go and change it ourselves!

Regards, aTomician

OldBob1957

Inspiring

Tomy-rex wrote:

can't we petition Adobe to allow the canvas size to be changed?

Yes, you can. You can add your name to the thousands of others over the years who have, again and again, version after version, asked for that very same thing.

The Illustrator feature request forum is HERE.

Good luck. Don't hold your breath waiting for it. It is truly amazing (to me) how archaic "features" like that never get changed in Adobe software.

BTW: Coreldraw has no such limitations and, like Adobe, they have a free trial period available.

--OB

Edit to add: They also still give you the option to BUY the software, instead of just rent it.

Zofo

Participant

Go to Objects>Artboards>Fit To Artboard Bounds

This may get you the results you are looking for.

Good luck.

D

deach5

Inspiring

Wow!

What a thread.

Thanks to you and Ben and a few others for trying to understand the users question.

B

bredonp293175

Participant

Use this tool

W

widedtalel

Participant

you cannot resize canvas size,just arboard size you can,but if you have somoting to do but size for artboard is more big than canvas size,in that time ,you can resize your file ,(exp your w size is 578cm or more ) in this situation you can not do your job because canvas size max is 578cm,what you will do ,divide your size into 2 or 3 ,both dont forget w and h,after that when you start to print -custom scale,and put if you divide your seize into 2 ,put 200% if more exp 4 make 400% ,after your size comming exctly ,and i hope you andrestand me my friend

R

rdracing

Participant

In case anyone else is just trying to enlarge an illustration you originally created in a size smaller than you need, and you're using Illustrator CC it's really quite simple.

First, reduce your view size small enough that your image/artboard is small enough that you have room to expand it (CMD + - on a Mac).

Next click on your Artboard Tool (Shift + O on a Mac). Move your cursor to a corner where you have room to drag. Left click and drag until the Artboard is as big as you need the image.

Now select each layer (slices) of the designs target button (to the right of the name) while holding down (CMD).

Now choose the Selection Tool (V) and you'll see the selection rectangle appear around your group of layers.

Now, just like in Photoshop, hold down the shift key while you left click and drag on a corner anchor and the entire image will enlarge proportionately.

I'm sure there's several other ways to achieve this as well, it's just a simple way I found to do it.

A

Anonymous

I had a similar problem. I created an artboard 63x48 inches and then tried to duplicate it 4 times but when it got to the fourth one I would get that same message about the canvas size. What worked for me was to simply reposition to first artboard as further left as possible, then when I duplicated there was more space and was able to create all four of them next to each other. Hope this helps someone.

Cheers!

M

mselainehunter@yahoo.ca

Participant

how do i make the canvas fit the new artboard size.... i tried the scale but cannot get it to work....thanks elaine

Jacob Bugge

Community Expert

Elaine,

That rather depends on your definition of canvas.

benbankson

Participant

Hey there Gert,

You can resize the canvas by going to File > Document Setup. In the top right hand corner of the dialogue window there's a button that says Edit Artboard. It will then highlight the artboard selected. You can then press Enter (Return) and it will open up the Artboard Options where you can change the size, orientation, etc.

You can also select the artboard using the "artboard tool" located in the toolbar which looks like a square with little tick marks at the corners. In either case the artboard options will also show up in the top bar if you want to quick adjust items without having to go into the dialogue window.

I'm using CS5 on a mac but I'm assuming the process is at least somewhat similar.

Hope this helps!

-ben