Adobe unveils productivity boosting updates for Illustrator

Adobe has unveiled a plethora of new innovations for the latest iteration of the Adobe Illustrator, each one designed to help users work more swiftly, more accurately and to bring their creative visions to life. The feature updates also aim to optimise productivity and efficiency, two crucial aspects of the design process. Taking into consideration frequent user requests, Adobe has provided new capabilities to ensure that artwork meets high standards of precision and beauty.

The introduction of the Dimension tool, first tested in beta mode in December, has already become a preferred feature among users. The tool eases the previously manual task of detailing the dimensions of product designs, such as distances, angles, and radii, within users' works. In addition to streamlining packaging design, it proves beneficial for technical graphics, interior and architectural design, and fashion and textile design. Subscribers have the freedom to customise various settings of plotted dimensions, adjust their position, and even hide the plotted dimensions to view the design without them. Furthermore, the update includes improvements suggested by users, for instance, choosing custom units and scaled dimensions according to the size of the artwork.

Alongside the Dimension tool, the latest Illustrator update introduces Text to Vector Graphic (beta), powered by Adobe Firefly. This feature allows for the creation of a broad range of professional, fully editable vectors such as icons, scenes, subjects, and patterns, all with a simple text prompt. Further refinements to this feature make it more user-friendly and efficient, allowing multiple actions to be performed on various selected variations, like rating good/bad and deleting multiple variations concurrently. Additionally, the update empowers users to specify up to 12 colours for patterns.

Another innovative feature allows users to adjust the Star Shape dynamically (a feature already present on Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator on iPad, and web Illustrator). Designers can adjust the size, position, and both the inner and outer radii of the star's points using on-shape control widgets. This tool saves a significant amount of manual time spent on adjusting shapes.

The Enclosed Rectangular Marquee Selection enhances object selection precision by ensuring only fully enclosed objects are selected. This feature is especially useful in complex and crowded artwork. On top of this, in response to user feedback, Adobe has added keyboard shortcuts to text formatting, including Bold, Italic, and Underline, to expedite the design process.

The latest Adobe Illustrator version with its fresh functionalities, like the Dimension tool, can be experienced upon updating. Adobe also encourages users to request, track, and vote on new features as a continuing effort to refine Illustrator based on their inputs.