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

[MixManSC1]

Make working with large format designs at 1:1 possible. In other words add a size function for the canvas to be scaled beyond 227 inches. Of course this would allow scaling the artboards beyond that size as well. Not sure if there woudl be implications to allowing it to be unlimited. Us large format print and design companies are annoyed at this daily. Vehicle template packages are at 1/20th scale. Finish the design for the 54 foot trailer and ready to print, scale 2000%. Nope sorry, cant do that. Export the file and open it in some other vector app for the final scaling then export from that to the RIP.

Was really hoping to see this in CS6. Sadly not happening.

[aTomician]

i agree, we want the option to edit the artboard size...    when creating wallpaper that is several metres wide and tall, it is impossible to get it on Illustrator.  Course, Adobe doesn't really care about that what their customers think, they just worry about trying to look good, and if they can't look good then they don't seem to want to get involved....  so probably not a lot of chance any of the staff will be getting involved in this discussion, i suppose, let alone getting anything changed - even though this thread was started in early 2012!!!

I've been thinking about getting our software guys to decompile the software and change it manually, i'm sure there must be a way to do it somehow.   Would make it a lot easier if Adobe just responded to their customers though, and even if they can't do something, they could at least explain WHY they can't do something...   instead there is this dire silence from the Adobe quarters, and as usual nothing happens.  I found a bug a while back and got Adobe on the phone and went through it and they couldnt't be bothered to try and fix it, they just showed me a different way to get a similar result.

seems such a small thing yet it makes the whole of Adobe look bad, even though it may be just one person not doing their job

[bsbeamer]

Interestingly, I just found this thread when reporting on an issue I'm experiencing when trying to animate large size Illustrator artwork within After Effects CC 2015.  AE CC 2015 is chopping the edges off of an AI CC 2015 file and the 227x227 limitation could be a contributing factor.  If I could "expand" the canvas and artboard size to 250x250, maybe the edges wouldn't be cut off?  (This file only has 1 artboard and it's maxed at canvas size.)

There are workarounds to this issue, but they all involve breaking apart the artwork and re-creating within AE to some extent.

[NickM101]

I'd like to see an option to increase the canvas size, I work with the large files at times and this can get pretty bloody annoying to work at 50% or 10% of full size... Getting team members to remember, or to read notes at the RIP to enlarge has caused problems in the past. I'd be happy if the Canvas size doubled or even tripled its current size, even if this was option when creating a new document. Just a thought.

[NickM101]

This is one of my biggest annoyances, pasting from one document to another and getting this error...now I have to spend time thinking of a solution to something that shouldn't even be a problem.

[Qwertyfly___]

try ctrl+f for paste in place, this will eliminate the error you are seeing about objects falling of the drawing area.

I'm not saying its not annoying and it should not be an issue, but it may stop you from getting too annoyed!

[thomasc11484006]

I agree. This is a feature I would love to see too. I am doing landscape design. Another option would be a calculator tool that would display your lines and objects into whichever conversion you want (i.e. 1 inch of artboard displays 8 feet in the calculator tool).

[illustrationperfectionist]

May I just add my support to all of the above, particularly Tomy-Rex and Doug-s. We have constant issues when editing the fine details in vector artwork for maps and heraldry with high level of detail. It appears Adobe is failing to answer or even acknowlege bug fixes that are inconveniently outside of the needs of mainstream consumers. However our costs in time are substantial. Please can we have somebody senior at least address this conversation? I would like to be proven wrong about this

[aTomician]

Hello Mr Illustration perfectionist!

Thanks for continuing to update this discussion.  For everyone's interest, i messaged one of the support team directly and she replied to me saying that -

"By making the canvas infinite, there is a great chance of making an adverse impact on application's performance. Users can work on something smaller in dimension, then print at a larger output dimension. Many designers  work with a percentage of the final dimension, like 25%. Also, the larger your scale, the more likely you can reduce the PPI, a billboard at 300ppi would not be necessary. File sizes get rather large at that point.

Illustrator caps the artboard at 227.54” W/H which is, I believe, around 18 feet and it has been limited to that for as long as I can remember. The request isn’t new but there’s more to a change than just changing the max # range. Performance is a big one."

- i received this reply within a couple of days of sending, so i don't know why no-one in Adobe has responded to this thread which was started in 2012.  I'm following up as it doesn't really make sense - i have a high end desktop PC with about 20GB of RAM...   don't thikn making the artboard size bigger is going to have a massive impact on it's performance  LOL

Tom

[Qwertyfly___]

There are many things that will impact performance.

mine are normally extremely detailed textures and meshes.

if I get a little to carried away it will cause major slowdowns.

even with 24GB ram

this is all on an A4 page.

so on the thought process offered above by the support team, maybe we should drop the canvas size to A5. and we should all just work at scale for everything.

what a cop out.

I'm hearing it more like:

"the setting that limits the canvas size is buried so deep in the programs code that we don't know where it is. we have not really changed anything that deep in the core structure since 1989 when we had to port it to windows. we hope we never have to as we don't really know how it works. that code was written over 25 years ago."

but its ok in photoshop.

I just created a 10 x 10 Meter Document at 300DPI.

its a little laggy but would be fine to stitch some smaller images together or something.

why can photoshop handle it, but illustrator can't?

[aTomician]

I agree...  at the end of the day, illustrator and photoshop etc are big, heavy programs as they are, and if you want them to run smoothly at all then you'll get a computer that is man enough for the job.  If you're aren't bothered enough to get a decent PC then you're not serious enough to be worried if you get lagging.  The other thing that occured to me - if the user could set the canvas size, they could actually speed illustrator up by choosing a smaller canvas then usual - if you're only working with A4 size documents all the time, this would be a big plus point.  As you say, many things can impact the performance - why on earth choose to limit the canvas size of all things?

to be fair, the best option might be to rewrite the program from scratch using all the feedback and experience gained over the years.  No one on the support team really seems to know how any of the old Adobe photoshop programs work....   

Tom

[Warren Heaton]

I just caught this thread in early 2016 and - I must admit - it gave me a bit of a chuckle.

Every vector in an AI file and every pixel in a PS file takes up space (not to mention that AI support rasters and PS support vectors).  And by "space", we're talking bits of data.  A 208-inch by 208-inch image at 144 DPI in PS will require 3.4GB of storage space whether it's a full scale drawing or a 1/12 scale drawing (assuming 24-bits per pixel and that the PS document is flat).  Granted, a high end computer can handle that; however, even if the software limitations for artboard and canvas were to be removed, there's still a ceiling when it comes to hardware.

Of course, the day when a new computer has 1PB to 3 PB of storage instead of 1TB to 3TB as well as 16TB of RAM instead of just 16GB is likely going to come to pass.  So, full scale, large scale documents are likely to happen!  Just not yet.

But then again, even if one can have their 10 ft by 40 ft billboard full scale within AI or PS, we'll have to view it at what - 10% to see the entire image on our desktops?  Unless, of course, we have the luxury of a 10ft by 40 ft video wall.

[thomasc11484006]

Your comment about Photoshop is correct. Large sized documents do consume large amounts of hard drive space. This is not as much of an issue in Illustrator. Of course there will be the few designers that will use 5 million layers, filling every square inch with compounded objects. But even if this were the case, AI would not even come close to PS in data consumption. PS keeps track of every pixel which adds to the total file size. In AI a solid 50x50 inch square only calculates the 4 points in space, stroke, fill and color. For my type of work (landscape design) I could create a single layered image that size and barely push 5mb. The data being used wouldn't change. Just the scale. The point of this in case you are wondering is the ability to design a scale space using its actual dimensions. To anyone else, this may seem arbitrary but for me its a necessity due to the accuracy needed. Also, if you where going to suggest using a cad program, the cost and learning curve for my limited use wouldn't be worth it. I am a graphic designer being asked for cad designs not the other way around.

[Snosrap]

One reason to work at size is that illustrator has its own version of what an inch is as opposed to say my plotter software. I'm currently working on a 335" long logo and the registration has to be spot on. The larger I can make the file, with the less manipulation by another program, the more accurate I can be. If we can change our artboard size, it sure would be cool if we could change the drawing board size as well. Then it would be on the user to slow his machine down.

[Mark__ddrt_]

Real world example:

PSD file needs a 1" white, contour cut, margin around it and it needs to go up on a wall. I can't add the contour cut at 1:1 because the size is too large. I can't create it at 1:20 because the jpg image will degrade going from small to large.

There's no rational argument against making it so we can't work in large format.

[Warren Heaton]

Hi Mark:

Have you tried switching to PSB instead of PSD?  I would have mentioned that earlier, but I didn't want to open up things to additional topics.  The PSB format is a "really large Photoshop file" and was specifically introduced to accommodated the larger images sizes we're seeing (mostly from DSLRs).

I'm curious?  Why are you using JPEG?

As far as a high quality print goes, you simply need your DPI to be 1.5 times your LPI and you're good to go.  If working proportionally and at a lower print size, increase your DPI proportional to how much you've decreased the width and height.

If you're not sure you're getting the numbers right, ask your service bureau for a template file.

-Warren

[Mark__ddrt_]

Image is actually a PSB but if I said “PSB” in the thread someone would have corrected me and said ‘PSD’ (has happened so many times).

I

’m using jpg because the image was downloaded from a stock website and has a difficult outline (it’s a few colors of ink dropped into water and it looks like smoke or something). Our wide format printer needs the image to stay as rgb (it’s to reduce color loss when the roland printer interprets the colors to cmyk) so it’s just a huge photoshop file but basically a jpg (for all intents and purposes). In addition PS CC automatically sets your file type to PSB once you reach a certain threshold for filesize/image size etc. That happened with all four images I’m trying to work with.

We need a vector item with a joined-path stroke, we need to add our the roland versaworks spot color to get a contour cut. The printer outputs the image and then we feed it again to get cut, after it dries. I can’t achieve this inside of photoshop because PS is raster, not vector.

I think I can work with 150dpi so at 1:20 scale I think I can place a 300dpi image into the ai file. However, the rip for the roland printer we use doesn’t have great proofing measures for quality before output and we’re trying to reduce un-needed waste.

Thanks for your time.

[Warren Heaton]

Don't get me wrong, I can totally appreciate what it's like to be able to work at full scale.

The day is coming.  Just... not right now.

[mangus76]

Also want to call out that the whole "work at 1/10 scale and just move the decimal place" is BS, and here's why. Illustrator CC rounds the size of artboard measurements to two decimal places. I have a window pane that is 7.75 inches wide (doing vinyl sign design). Trying to make an artboard at scale – .775 inches wide – the field forces the measurements to .78. That is wrong. I'm creating graphics that span dozens of windows of varying sizes from the aforementioned small-width to 56" wide, all in long rows. This level of accuracy is only going to cause pain once vinyl is cut and installation is happening.

The memory issue is a frustrating answer. We know other apps deal in larger sizes. No one asked for "infinite" space. And dynamically adjusting the memory issues based on overall canvas size doesn't seem crazy.

[mangus76]

Also, while it won't solve my sign-design needs, SKETCH HAS AN INFINITE CANVAS. There. It's possible so let's stop making excuses. Literally the only reason I haven't ditched Illustrator is that I'm tied to InDesign, with no long-document/typesetting competition. If I could ditch my Adobe CC subscription, I would.

[cuzzo0524]

The canvas size limit is a pain, I like to do my racing vinyl wraps in 1:1, I can do this in Corel Draw no problem.  I would rather use Illustrator instead as I have alot of Graphic Styles setup and like to use them on my wraps, it's a hassle going from one piece of software to another and having to rescale since Illustrator can't do 1:1 for the size i'm working with.

[aTomician]

That's another thing that annoys me - Adobe maintain that increasing the canvas size will make Illy to slow and laggy, but no other design program seems to have these limits, and they are generally not much faster or slower than Illy.   Coreldraw?  fast as anything, not a problem, serif programs?  nothing to worry about...  Inkscape?  Xara Xtreme? Skencil? Gimp?....  ok these programs may be lacking in design capabilities, and may not have the vast amount of options and tools that Illy has, but they doln't have stupid canvas limits which means you have to scale anything you do that's too big...   Thought Illy was the best vector design program out until I came across this limitation.

Like if you agree

[Warren Heaton]

While there's room for improvement, Illustrator's still the vector illustration application to beat for numerous reasons.

For one, you can do math in the text fields and mix units of measurement.

[StudioOpheim]

I agree. We need to remove the limit. I also work in the sign/car-vinyl business. To make vinyl, we always need the file in 1:1. To ease the process, I make the files ready for production. I know that I can make files in a specific height to match the width of the vinyl. Often I can not make the files 1:1 because you know why.. Them my guys in the production department get one more step of work. Why? In 2016 there is no need...

Often I also get files from users who have, say, Corel Draw. If it´s made in 1:1 - I can´t open the file. There are always workarounds, but why should we need to work around something at all?

[Adam Stanning]

I would like to add my support to the original posts request. One thing that seems to be missing in this thread (unless I have simply missed it) is the requirement to constantly do mental calculations whilst designing for large format prints. Being able to specify stroke and type in millimetres is great when working at 1:1. As soon as one is required to work to a scale these values become redundant and you must constantly make small calculations in order to size things accordingly. Rather than everyone jumping on their horse to explain the various workarounds, I ask the question, why should we have to use workarounds to something as simple as being able to design at 1:1. We all understand how we can in fact use scale to give us the desired result but why in the modern computing world is it necessary. Shaving off a little time here and there making conversions can result in greater productivity for us all.

[janaleks]

Working with  print and cut programs where I have to place optical pass markers for cutting vinyl in a roland machine for printing 50 mts vynil and many cut details in scale is rather cumbersome. There is a big margin for error to happen, and even when working 1:10 expanding to 1000% makes minimal errors in size greater when scaled. Although those minimal fails are not visible in practice makes the machine unable to be accurate enough to read those passamarks. In the other hand CorelDraw as many other vector base programs has the possibility to work in real size. So what I am saying is that the ability to scale the canvas beyond it's  227 inch limits would add to my working process to go much faster and more accurate.   Yes I could use CorelDraw but I pay the license for Illustrator why would I need to use 2 similar software and pay 2 licences where I could do the same in one?