Adobe says that Illustrator artboards serve as an infinite canvas for designing graphics with varying shapes and sizes — and that feature is about to get even more infinite. This week, Adobe shared a sneak peek at the next version of Illustrator, which allows users to create ten times more artboards than the previous program.
In the current version of Illustrator, designers are limited to 100 artboards within a single file. With the update, that limit will be expanding to 1,000. Artboards are a sort of document within a document, a design on a separate area, but one that is not constrained by the dimensions of the previous artboard. Artboards can be printed and exported individually, or arranged within that single Illustrator file.
With the number of potential artboards now reaching all the way into four figures, the update will also include a number of new tools to manage all those boards. The company says that designers will soon be able to select multiple artboards at once to rearrange or even resize. Multiple artboards can also be organized instantly using automatic grids and columns, Adobe says.
“For designers already using numerous artboards — and those excited by the possibilities — these changes will greatly enhance your workflow,” Adobe’s Wayne Hoang shared in a blog post.
While the presence of more elements within a single document correlates with a larger file size, Adobe says that the expanded limitations won’t affect performance, crediting the change to the engineering team.
The sneak peak of Illustrator is part of a longer string of teasers from Adobe. The company has already shared that multi-colored font compatibility will also be coming to the next version of Illustrator. And last week, the software company shared a new Curvature Pen Tool that’s coming to the next version of Photoshop.
Adobe celebrated Illustrator’s 30th anniversary earlier this year, announcing at the time that 180 million graphics are now built inside the program every month. When the software first launched, it was the first program to allow graphic designers to work without extensive computer programming skills.
Adobe hasn’t shared a date yet for the Illustrator update. Illustrator CC 2017 received updates on November 2016 and April 2017, while Photoshop CC 2017 rolled out in November 2016 as well.
