Participant

Answered

Remove Canvas Size Limit

Forum|Forum|7 years ago
January 22, 2019
10 replies
19789 views

There has been tremendous requests to remove, or expand, the current size limits of the canvas in Illustrator in the following thread.

https://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/333657-illustrator-feature-requests/suggestions/20395555-remove-canvas-size-lim…

There was only one response from Adobe personnel in October 2017, and my understanding is they no longer are part of the project.

Can we have someone from Adobe followup on this request since it has received a lot of votes. I don't know if that feature request forum has been depreciated or not, or if feature requests should be made at a new site.

Thank you.

Correct answer Jeff Witchel, ACI

Done! New feature.

L

lelouna

Participant

Check this video, the solution is there:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rVCBEbMuPg&ab_channel=Pixel%26BracketIllustratorTutorials

Monika Gause

Community Expert

@lelouna schrieb:

Check this video, the solution is there:

As has already been posted 4 years ago.

schroef

Inspiring

That is either designers fault or printers fault. Companies have been working like this for decades!
First thing designer needs to do, check what printer wants and talk about dimensions.

Communication is key!

Monika Gause

Community Expert

"With this behaviour you are loosing positions - Dreamweaver got forgotten, Flash got forgotten, etc."

1. When answering, please read everything. You can set up canvas at large sizes.

2. 95% of folks in the forums are not Adobe. So who is the "you" youare addressing?

Jeff Witchel, ACI

Correct answer

Community Expert

Done! New feature.

E

esaeo-nyc-pdx

Participating Frequently

I know the larger canvas is available, but I cannot just work with the artwork and have it automatically expand its maximum as needed. I have to specifically create another file and specify a larger-than-227 artboard for this feature to be available. It should be available live. As artwork from schematic is scaled up to 1:1 the file should just take it seemlessly instead of trying to scale up in the original file; run into the wall; start a new file with an oversized artboard; copy/paste from original to new; and then finally attempt the scale-up. Just let the max be the max in all cases. And if you're working with (e.g.) magazine artwork, the canvas could appear smaller for the sake of navigation, but if working with OOH, the canvas just naturally expands.

FEATURE REQUEST: Have a preference setting for the canvas to be X units of padding beyond exisitng artboards. Essentially, the canvas is a bounding box for all artboards with padding. Example: Canvas Padding = 10 in. (or ft. or %.... user choice of value and unit), and so a single 5"x5" artboard would have a 25"x25" canvas; and if adding another 5"x5" at 1" spacing to the right, the canvas would be 36"x25"> And if I drag the one of the artboards 50" away from the other (for whatever reason) the canvas will encompass them both with 10" all around, dynamically. The user wouldn't have to even consider additional step to have the workspace/canvas accommodate.

Jeff Witchel, ACI

Community Expert

If you really need that flexibility, set up a new file with 1 artboard measuring 22,700" X 22,700". Set up all of your other artboards afterwards at any size you want (inside the first artboad). You'll have over 1891 square feet of space to work with. 100 times more space than with previous versions of Illustrator.

Photodecal

Participant

I agree on this ., Make it larger . Corel is doing it already ,why cant adone jump on this as well. I know so many people who have left adobe to corel for this same reason and im tempted to do it also and use my money for what i need instead of what i cant get . I dont like scaling a image verus being able import a full size with hassle. If adobe doest make a change i will and i know many more who will as well. Adobe makes more than enough money to make a simple change to make things better for us and to keep us from going to corel .

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Bhannon81

Inspiring

THANK YOU FOR BRINGING THIS UP AS WELL! There are people posting on that page almost EVERY DAY!!! 502 votes and over 300 comments. And all of those links above just link back to the same page!

Remove canvas size limit – Adobe Illustrator Feedback

I don't know why they keep dodging this issue, seems like this is the only program in the industry that has these types of size restraints.

Adobe keeps on coming out with these new programs for CC, why can't they develop a large format specific program? Not everybody needs a mobile app design program but there are definitely hundreds of people (and probably a lot more) who would benefit from this.

And I'm tired of people using the excuse "you should have seen what it use to be" or "in the old days".

It would be nice to at LEAST hear back from Adobe on this issue, many people feel ignored and are starting to use other programs for design and illustration.

Doug A Roberts

Community Expert

https://forums.adobe.com/people/BH+VCD wrote
And I'm tired of people using the excuse "you should have seen what it use to be" or "in the old days".

I believe Jacob meant it more as interesting trivia than excuse.

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Bhannon81

Inspiring

Ok, but that is totally beside the point. Are you trying to discuss the problem here or call people out? How did you even see my comment, I don't see any posts from you on this thread...

Jacob Bugge

Community Expert

Mega-Tech, others,

You may follow the links in posts #65 & 66 & 79 by Rama and Yogesh and Doug here,

Re: Add the ability to scale the canvas beyond it's archaic 227 inch limits.

or directly,

Workflows that need large canvas / artboard

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/LargeCanvas

https://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/333657-illustrator-fe…

In the old days the limit was 1296 pt or 18 in.

T

torie88182136

Participant

Yes PLEASE adobe...please remove the canvas size limitations. We need to set our files to the proper scale and ensure the end result is as needed for resolution and quality of our imagery. I am needing to design a vinyl graphic wall installation and the wall is 278'' long....this is not good that I cannot design this wall to-scale as illustrator is currently set up with the artboard size restrictions. Any update on this update would be great?! Thank you.

Daniel E Lane

Inspiring

what the heck are you creating that you want to work on something larger than 18 feet by 18 feet?

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Bobby Henderson

Community Expert

Signs, billboards, large banners, vehicle wraps/graphics, wall wraps, store-front window wraps, trade show graphics, etc. If someone is going to design those kinds of items within Adobe Illustrator the project usually must be designed at some scale level (such as 10% or 1" = 1') to fit within Illustrator's art board size limits. When the job is output it is critical for anyone else involved to scale the artwork up to the proper size before printing, cutting vinyl, routing parts, etc. Being able to design at full size removes that potential for error.

Some industry-specific applications (like SAi Flexi) are geared for large format design and can drive vinyl cutters, large format printers and other devices. But those applications have their own limitations. Flexi still isn't on the ball when it comes to fully supporting all the features of OpenType.

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Bobby Henderson

Community Expert

There has been a pretty long, on-going discussion about the art board size limit in the Illustrator Feature Requests forum. New comments are still being posted:
https://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/333657-illustrator-feature-requests/suggestions/20395555-remove-canvas-size-limit?page=1&per_page=20

I'm not holding my breath for the current 227" X 227" limit to change. I suspect it has something to do with mathematical engineering "under the hood". I don't know of any vector-based drawing program has truly has things like unlimited zoom or unlimited art board sizes. CorelDRAW can technically allow art boards to go up to 1800" X 1800," but the program will become very annoyingly un-usable at that level. You'll get hit with max zoom limit warning boxes constantly at anything past 1000" X 1000". Object editing precision also starts to take a hit. There is definitely some kind of push-pull balance taking place.