Participant

Answered

Illustrator v29.6 - Arrange Artboards works differently

Forum|Forum|8 months ago
June 19, 2025
14 replies
3136 views

As much as I love new updates I have had to revert back to the previous version due to a function that has changed. Purely because I am quite meticulous on structure and alignment. So it's not a breaking feature I might just be full of it.

With the new update the Arrange artboards function now works differentely.

Previously once you have set the Layout>Columns>Spacing and hit enter the pages would align centre to the canvas. Now with the new update once I hit enter it wants me to to place the selected artboards where I want them. Am I missing something as to how to centre this from here on or is this no longer vailable.

How-to

Correct answer Arel

Hello @Arel,

Sorry to hear about the performance issues. Could you confirm the version of Illustrator currently installed, and if Illustrator behaves this way with specific files, so I can better assist you?

Also, try the suggestions shared in this help article (https://adobe.ly/4liMGUa) and share your observations.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Anubhav

Hello,
An update is now available in my CC dashboard, so I did update Illustrator and the issue now seems to be resolved. Thank you — I appreciate your response!

A

Abjunqueira

Participant

Hi, I'm having an issue with the Rearrange Artboards function in Illustrator.

Before, when I used Window > Artboards > Rearrange Artboards, it would automatically organize them after I clicked "OK". Now, it asks me to manually click on the canvas to place the layout and sometimes it freezes or crashes the app. I’ve already tried restarting, resetting preferences, creating a new file, turning GPU on/off, nothing works. Any ideas on how to fix this or bring back the automatic behavior?

Thanks!

Doug A Roberts

Community Expert

This was changed in 29.6. The old behaviour should be available by a toggle in recent Beta versions (and thus soon in the general release):

Allow legacy behavior for "Rearrange Artboards" – Adobe Illustrator

D

defaultd26wm1405pgo

Participant

Yes totally agree, please Adobe, either revert to the previous way the "rearrange artboards" worked, or give the option to have the "legacy" behaviour, my workflow has been completly disrupted - it often involves working on 20-30 artboards at a time and then moving them into a different order, previously this was really simple but now with the manual click it is actually unusable

D

defaultplkqp8kyjbph

Participant

Illustrator puts a white hailine at the adge of any artboard that is positioned as a fraction of a pixel.

The new artboard rearrange feature prevents me from positioning artboards to an whole pixel. So, there is not way to prevent the white hairline.

I have to manually position my first artboard, then do the math and position each board afterwards.

It's Ridiculous.

Please either have it snap the first artboard to a whole pixel or go back the the way it worked before.

W

Will-1999

Participant

I don't particularly like (to put it mildy). It doesn't allow to have pixel perfect artboards.

F

Flávio Abreu

Participant

Olá. Na nova atualização do Illustrator, quando faço ''Reorganizar'' na ferramentas das pranchetas, ele ''questiona'' onde quero reorganizar e antigamente reorganizava ao centro. Como desativar essa opção?

creative explorer

Community Expert

@Flávio Abreu If you don't want Illustrator to automatically arrange your artboards, simply avoid using the "Rearrange All Artboards" option?!

m

F

Flávio Abreu

Participant

Mas eu quero que ele organize as pranchetas automáticamente, mas ele não faz isso agora.

Ele solicita onde eu quero organiza-las, não o faz de forma automática.

Mike Choo

Inspiring

The option to manually place groups of artboards when re-arranging is welcome, but to have completely removed the option to have them centred as a group on the canvas is baffling.

When working on storyboards I often have common objects locked in place, and then use the rearrange tool to re-order the artboards while leaving those locked objects where they are.

The way the new version does it means it is impossible to have the group of artboards centred on the canvas, and also means that artboards being off-pixel is almost guaranteed.

I'd really love to see an option for the rearrange artboards to behave as it did - maybe pressing Enter when it's showing the preview of the new artboard group could commit them as per the old version, and if the user clicks it places them from the mouse position.

New tool options are great, but please don't take away exiting workflow tools without good reason.

Thanks

Abhishek Rao

Community Manager

Hi @Mike Choo,

Thanks so much for sharing your detailed feedback. I completely understand how this change could disrupt your storyboard workflow.

Could you please take a look at this thread and confirm if the issue you’re facing is similar to what's described there? Here's the link: https://adobe.ly/4nybOIZ.

Once you confirm, I can pass this along to the team with your specific use case so they’re fully aware.

Looking forward to hearing back from you!

Abhishek

Mike Choo

Inspiring

Hi Abhishek,

Thanks for your quick reply, this is indeed the same issue. I did do a search before posting but must have missed that one.

I have also voted on the uservoice linked in that post - should things like this be posted in the community forum or on Uservoice? it's a bit confusing having both. For example, I've just posted a feature request on the community forum, but the Uservoice seems to have more active users - if you could let me know where to go that would be great.

Many thanks,

Mike

C

Coherent Creative

Participant

I'm Using Illustrator 29.6.1,

Rearranging Artboards is something I do on nearly every job… Keeps everything neat and tidy. BUT in recent days it seems to have just stopped working. Has this happened for anyone else or just me?

Known bug?

jane-e

Community Expert

@Coherent Creative

I've moved your post from Using the Community to the Illustrator forum

Jane

M

MrMensah

Inspiring

Yeah I totally agree and have spent way to long trying to center artboards to the pasteboard. The auto-center feature really helped me to meticulously layout my artboards. I understand the update but completely removing the feature really messed with my workflow. My suggestion would be to add options to the Rearrange Artboards dialog box where you can either 1) manually enter X/Y coordinates, 2) automatically center to the pasteboard, or 3) manually place with the cursor.

Abhishek Rao

Community Manager

Hi @hopedivisionza,

Thanks again for raising this!

I checked in with the product team regarding the updated behavior of the Rearrange Artboards feature in v29.6. They've confirmed that this is a new feature introduced in the June release. It was implemented based on prior user feedback via UserVoice.

That said, the team is aware of the recent feedback about the updated behavior and understands that it may have disrupted some workflows. . In the meantime, I'd encourage you to continue sharing your thoughts on the official UserVoice thread here:
https://adobe.ly/45FCYXL

Your input really helps the team prioritize improvements. I'll keep you posted as soon as there's an update.

Abhishek

A

Arel

Participating Frequently

Trying to 'Rearrange artboards' has resulted in 4 freezes so far today for a file that is 276KB in size with only 4 artboards. My computer is on OS Sequoia 15.6 (Mac) with plenty of memory and disk space available. I don't have time in the midst of my workday to set up a User voice account again and then be inundated with email about an issue that isn't yet solved.

Anubhav M

Community Manager

Hello @Arel,

Sorry to hear about the performance issues. Could you confirm the version of Illustrator currently installed, and if Illustrator behaves this way with specific files, so I can better assist you?

Also, try the suggestions shared in this help article (https://adobe.ly/4liMGUa) and share your observations.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Anubhav

D

diolim

Participant

Hello, the new addition of the mouse cursor to rearrange selected artboards has made the tool useless for me. I used the old rearrange tool to ensure that the artboards were aligned perfectly to rounded pixels in the X and Y axis, to ensure that png exports will not have any extra pixels.

Please is there any way to turn off the mouse cursor option, or to have it snap to whole pixels properly?