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BOLD Pros
Participant
October 9, 2017
Answered

Preset Artboards Illustrator CC

  • October 9, 2017
  • 5 replies
  • 8378 views

Hi there!

I was wondering if there was any way to create my own presets for artboards and save them. I am constantly making graphics for social media platforms and I would love to have one saved, for example, as "Facebook" with the proper dimensions so I don't have to manually enter them in every time. Is this possible? How do I go about doing this?

Thanks so much in advance!

    Correct answer Bill Silbert

    You can save it as a template. See screen shots:

    Open a new file with the artboards defined as you want them and save the file as an Illustrator template (.ait) to the path shown in the top picture. Then when you open a new document click on "More Settings" in the New Document Window and then on Templates in the More Settings dialog window that will open and choose your custom template. If you use the Legacy New Document dialog then it will have the Templates option right there (the legacy New Document looks just like the More Settings dialog from the new one).

    5 replies

    S
    SaintEclair
    Participant
    May 31, 2023

    Still really wish there was an easier way to do this!  Having A3 & A4 as the only European print size defaults is pretty annoying

    Alex Grant
    Alex Grant
    Inspiring
    January 13, 2023

    I know I'm a bit late to the party 🙂 but hopefully my answer will help someone else landing here, asking for the same thing...

     

    There is actually a way to accomplish exactly what you want. It involves editing a file in the location where Illustrator keeps its presets.
    On Mac that file is: [your drive]/user/[your username]/Library/Preferences/Adobe/Adobe Illustrator [ver] Settings/[local.ver]/PresetDocumentProfileDataV2.json

    On Windows it is: C:\Users\[your username]\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Adobe Illustrator [ver] Settings\[local.ver]\x64\PresetDocumentProfileDataV2.json

     

    I have made a video tutorial about it, in case you need more details: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-uurpk-4zA

    The only shortcoming of my method is the presets are only available in the New Document window, but not in the artboart drop-down menu in the properties toolbox (once an artboard is already opened). But even like that, it is a significant quality of life improvement.

     

    Hope it helps.

    Alex 

    Ton Frederiks
    Community Expert
    Ton FrederiksCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    October 9, 2017

    Or you can create a document with the number of artboards at the size you want and save it as a New Document Profile.

    There is a folder in the Illustrator Application folder: Support Files > New Document Profiles > (your language folder) where you can save this file.

    You can select this profile when you create a New Document.

      Ton Frederiks
      Community Expert
      Ton FrederiksCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      October 9, 2017

      Bill's template suggestion is a good idea.

      But you can actually open any Illustrator file as a template, it does not have to be saved in a special place.

      Just  go to File > New from Template... and browse to the file that you want to base your new document upon.

      It will open as an Untitled file.

        Bill Silbert
        Community Expert
        Bill SilbertCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
        Community Expert
        October 9, 2017

        You can save it as a template. See screen shots:

        Open a new file with the artboards defined as you want them and save the file as an Illustrator template (.ait) to the path shown in the top picture. Then when you open a new document click on "More Settings" in the New Document Window and then on Templates in the More Settings dialog window that will open and choose your custom template. If you use the Legacy New Document dialog then it will have the Templates option right there (the legacy New Document looks just like the More Settings dialog from the new one).

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