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gad282551838cmx
Known Participant
May 9, 2026
Answered

Slow performance in Illustrator when working with the Text Panel

  • May 9, 2026
  • 3 replies
  • 98 views

Illustrator has become extremely slow recently overall, but it is especially noticeable when working with text.

General UI actions feel sluggish, and anything related to text is much worse:
- Opening the Character panel takes several seconds
- Selecting text has delay
- Changing text parameters is slow
- Text-related panels respond very late

In addition, Illustrator itself takes a very long time to launch and fully load.

My PC is strong (RTX 4060, lots of free SSD space, updated drivers, latest Illustrator version), so this does not seem hardware-related.

What I already tried:
- Updated GPU drivers
- Cleared temp/cache files
- Reset Illustrator settings/preferences
- Disabled GPU Performance
- Tested on new empty documents

Has anyone else experienced this recently?
Could this be related to fonts, Adobe Fonts sync, recent Illustrator updates, or some known bug?

      Correct answer Bobby Henderson

      I might have overlooked it, but is your computer running Windows 11? Microsoft just rolled out a fairly big update for it. Sometimes bad behavior in an application can be attributed to bugs in the operating system. It might be worth running the update to see if it makes any difference with Illustrator.

      3 replies

      Anubhav M
      Community Manager
      Anubhav MCommunity Manager
      Community Manager
      May 11, 2026

      Hello ​@gad282551838cmx ​@szymon_5776 

       

      We understand how frustrating it can be to encounter performance issues in Illustrator in the middle of work. Would you mind trying the suggestions shared in this help article (https://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/kb/optimize-illustrator-performance.html) and let us know if they help?

       

      Also, try running Illustrator after rebooting your computer in Safe Mode (Windows / macOS) and a different administrator account (Windows / macOS) and share your observations.

       

      Looking forward to hearing from you.
      Anubhav

        G
        gad282551838cmxAuthor
        Known Participant
        May 11, 2026

        Thanks.
        I already went through most of the suggestions in that article before posting here:

        • Cleared temp/cache files

        • Reset Illustrator preferences/settings

        • Disabled GPU Performance

        • Reduced History States

        • Tested on empty documents

        • Tested offline

        • Tested with basic fonts like Arial

        The issue still persists, especially around text-related UI and opening Character/Text panels.

        I’ll also try Safe Mode and a different Windows administrator account and report back with the results.

        Bill Silbert
        Community Expert
        Bill SilbertCommunity Expert
        Community Expert
        May 11, 2026

        Are you using any third-party plug-ins either with Illustrator or your OS? If so try disabling them and see if the problem persists.

        G
        gad282551838cmxAuthor
        Known Participant
        May 11, 2026

        Not really.
        I don’t use any third-party Illustrator plug-ins as far as I know.

        The only unusual thing I noticed was something called AIRobin in the Illustrator settings folders, but it doesn’t seem to be an actual Illustrator plug-in.

        S
        szymon_5776
        Known Participant
        May 10, 2026

        Same issue here.

        Noticed a huge performance downgrade these last two months, not just in Illustrator, but also Lightroom Cloud (sliders lagging, export taking longer, copy and pasting edits taking longer).

        Sometimes it is a software issue, sometimes it is due to Adobe’s cloud servers.
        (Last year Adobe Cloud servers went down, making most cloud connected software unusable whilst being connected)

        It doesn’t always fix the issue, but it can help...try using illustrator offline. Disconnect your PC from the internet to get rid of any Adobe Cloud interference.
        It’s worth a try.

          G
          gad282551838cmxAuthor
          Known Participant
          May 10, 2026

          I actually just tried that after ChatGPT recommended testing Illustrator completely offline.

          Unfortunately, it didn’t improve anything at all.
          The UI is still very sluggish, especially around text-related actions and opening Character/Text panels.

          B
          Community Expert
          Bobby HendersonCommunity Expert
          Community Expert
          May 11, 2026

          Does this lagging behavior occur with any Illustrator document? I’m wondering if there are certain fonts involved that could be a culprit. Badly authored fonts can cause problems. The system can also be weighed down by too many fonts being installed.

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