Questions

Hi everyone, I'm new to Illustrator and using it for scientific visualization.I need to draw a long blue waveguide (a rectangle). At one spot, I want two coatings on top of the waveguide (gold + another material). No layer under the blue bar. I attached a reference image done by AI.What’s the best way to stack these layers with different thicknesses so they sit smoothely on top of the eachother? Any simple steps or tool suggestions are appreciated.Thank you.  

In my preferences I have set my guidelines to show as dots. Since the latest update horizontal, vertical and some diagonal lines show as dots, but any other guides, when setting a shape to a guide, shows as solid lines.Does anyone know a solution to have them all show as dots?

I am using Illustrator 2021and there was a post about doing a hatched shadow on text and it was mentioned that by use the Appearance Panel this could be done as well as scaling and changing colors. I tried to open the Graphical Lines Pattern in the program folder to see how the pattern was made, (what size document, color mode, color of pattern, etc.), but nothing showed in the file even in Outline mode. Is there a tutorial that shows how to create other types of patterns that work that way or is it just a feature of the Appearance Panel? Thanks

  In Illustrator 29.8.2, the scaling in the links palette is not displayed correctly when placing images

Is there a way to select mutiple objects in a Illustrator doc and then paste each selection individually in that same file just like selecting and placing mutiple files into an Illustrator doc? 

When background is black color blending mode color burn hide the text but when background is white color blending mode color burn shows the text. What is reason behing this? video also uploaded.     

This bug has been around for a while. When scaling objects that have a mesh gradient (or even sometimes just moving and rotating them) the gradient will 'break' and randomly remove some of the nodes. The current workaround is to expand the fill, but this then renders it uneditable (so no re-colorization etc.) Please sort this out Adobe.   

Is it possible to dynamically change the text and color of an .ai (Adobe Illustrator) file using AI/ML or any other technique? Currently, I am using ExtendScript to replace text frame contents. However, when the new text is too long, it overflows beyond the original text frame area. I want the text to automatically fit within the original text frame boundaries, regardless of its orientation — horizontal, vertical, circular, inclined, triangular, or even in cases of split text frames. Is there a way to achieve this automatically, either using ExtendScript, AI/ML integration, or any other method?

Hi there,  I'm facing a frustrating issue with my template built with variables in Illustrator. The moment I change anything at all in the original (working and loadable file), even if it's just a letter, I get the error message: Ïncoming variable library is invalid". Actually, even by not changing anything, if I open the working source file in Excel, that still could import to Illustrator, the moment I click on Save in Excel, without even changing anything, the file will not load anymore in Illustrator. My source file has not been used or changed for about half a year and now I can't modify it anymore without it erroring out. Have to add that I have a new laptop. On my old laptop csv files would automatically open in coloumns including my source file. Now this is not the case, and the moment I try to load the data within Excel's "Data" section, the loaded data is already giving me the error message without any changes upon loading in Illustrator. Can anyone jump to

 Bonjour, Je rencontre régulièrement un souci d'affichage sur l'un des styles de police (Poppins SemiBold) :celle-ci s'affiche parfois en version Hindi sur Illustrator et Photoshop, malgré plusieurs redémarrages / réactivations. Avez-vous déjà rencontré ce type de problèmes ?Merci bcp pour votre aide. Ci-dessous un aperçu (haut : Poppins Regular / bas : Poppins SemiBold)  

Hi there, I have recently updated my Adobe software to the latest versions, including Illustrator to version 26.0.1 and I have just started experiencing an error trying to open barcode files directly from Barcode Producer.The third party program I am using is Barcode Producer from Superiorware LLC, and it is used to create a range of retail barcodes for packaging design. After updating my Illustrator, I was then unable to directly open the barcode files by clicking their AI button. The error message I receive reads "Unable to open temporary output file. Please try saving the barcode and opening it in the desired program." (see screenshot attached). I initially thought that I may need to update the Barcode Producer software to suit the latest AI update, but after updating this, I still receive the same error. I am able to save the file as an EPS file and then open with AI from my desktop but for some reason it is not working directly from a temporary file.The Barcode soft

This is literally the least of my worries but it is an annoyance, when looking for files in file explorer or the 'place' action, my file thumbnails for illustrator are now all illustrator (beta) white with a blue Ai, rather than the classic orange with a yellow/orange Ai, i then uninstalled the beta version, i was only looking at it for the 'turntable' (very exciting feature) but they havent changed back.... Why is this?I have no files made/saved as Illustrator (beta)

Hi all. Absolute newbie here.I'm learning Illustrator for surface pattern design. After creating a pattern, when I export the file as an svg, illustrator file or png to a dropbox folder on my PC it exports fine. But when I try to export it as a jpg, it exports a .jpg.tmp$$ file. If I export that same jpg file to any folder on my PC (not a dropbox folder) it exports as a jpg. The files are small (less than 1 mb) and they never get converted to jpg. I read it might be some interference from Avast ransomware shield, so I deactivated it, with no result.I tried the chat help, but they kept telling me that I can't export to dropbox, and I have to export to a dropbox synchronized folder on my PC, which is what I do. Finally they told me to export the files to my desktop and move them to dropbox later, but I can't understand why I can export as a png or other files on my folder in dropbox and not jpgs. My illustrator version is 29.8.2. Dropbox is also updated. I'm using Windows 10. Never

Does anyone know why the option to assign a keyboard sortcut to the Find and Replace option is missing? 

Folks let me start off by saying I am an absolute beginner with Ilustrator, zero knowledge. I have this stock .ai file: Now I want it to be A4 size, so I opened an A4 size document and placed the image in it, so now it is like this:  How so I scale only the blue and red backgrounds so that they fill the top and the bottom of the page without scaling all the text and everything else with it? Thank you and please kindly ELI5 if you do have time to respond.

I am attempting to create an illustrated poster in adobe Illustrator 2025. The illustrations are of some simple flowers but are composed of lots of lines with a rough texture art brush. I illustrated the first three flowers without issue and everything was smooth. Then I come back to it to draw the fourth and suddenly it is like trying to wade through treacle. Illustrator brings up a small window saying 'Applying Art Brush' after every single action I make. Wether that's toggling a layer visibility, selecting an anchor point with the pen tool or anything similar. Moving an anchor with the pen tool takes several seconds to calculate and update. I also created a flat coloured square shape behind the flower illustration with no stroke applied, however it seems to be glitching and has applied the artbrush I used for the lines in the illustration as a stroke around the shape. Nothing I do to the shape will remove it and when I create a new shape it has the same issue. I have

Why the stroke shown as gridlines after saving a vector file in pdf or svg from illustrator?

Hi, so I ran into a blocking error today while running RandomSwatchesFill.js, a well-known script for Adobe Illustrator. The goal is simple: fill the selected shapes with a random color from the swatches I have selected. It worked perfectly yesterday, but today Illustrator suddenly stops with an error on line 20. Nothing has changed in my Illustrator setup between then and now, which makes the issue even more puzzling.The Script:  mySelection = app.activeDocument.selection; myDoc = app.activeDocument; if (mySelection instanceof Array) { selSwatches = myDoc.swatches.getSelected(); if(selSwatches.length != 0) for (i=0; i<mySelection.length; i++) { if(mySelection[i].typename == "PathItem" || mySelection[i].typename == "CompoundPathItem") { selItem = mySelection[i]; selItem.filled = true; swatchIndex = Math.round( Math.random() * (selSwatches.length - 1 ));

Yesterday morning I could open multiple Illstrator files at the same time, yesterday evening I had difficulties even opening one at a time... anyone else experiencing this? I am using 29.8.2 

I'm having increasing difficulty grabbing bezier control points - not the ends of segments, but the little round handles on the ends of the control tangents.I used to make Illustrator fly but now I waste so much time grabbing, failing, grabbing again, accidentally deselectiing, selecting again, failing to grab yet again, grabbing again and again...Even if i very carefully and slowly grab the point, Illustrator fails to notice and my mouse pointed slides off without moving it. I find it's particularly oe even more difficult to grab a point when its on or near a guide line.I have looked in prefs and I think the selection anchor & display snap to and tolerance only apply to segment end points.Am I missing something? Is it a bug? Is there a setting somewhere else I can fiddle with? Any suggestions?Cheers,K.

My Curvature tool has these strange crosshairs, and I'm still able to use it, but wherever I move it, the pen glitches at every point instead of allowing me to move around freely.

I was working on a graphic that had solid colors and no outlines. Now I have all outlines and no fill colors. Did I accidentally hit a key that did that? How do I get back to my intended graphic? 

I create a normal AI document. Make my graphic and save it as an AI document. In the course of my work, I need to send something to my client and save the document save as .pdf. As if by magic, the AI_Document has now become a pdf document. I have lost hours of work this way if you don't notice. This stupid and absolutely not comprehensible behavior sucks. That's why I save the document: save as and don't just save the document. For this behavior it now urgently needs a patch! Immediately! Thx     {Renamed by MOD}

I am trying to place a linked file onto my Illustrator artboard and everytime that I try to place it I get the following pop up after it tries to place. I've dragged the file from my desktop onto the page and it allows me to embed the file, but when I try to "unembed" and link the file, I get the same message that "illustrator cannot read the file. Try to replacing this with another valid link" I have resaved the file as a different color format in PSD to see if that would help, it didn't. I also tried restarting. Uninstalling illustrator and reinstalling it.  Please let me know if you have any suggestions!