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Draw shapes
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Paint and fill
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Learn painting basics
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Apply and edit strokes
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Use swatches
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Modify colors
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Apply transparency and blending
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Design with text
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Work with fonts and scripts
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Edit and format text
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Use special characters and glyphs
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Create and manage artboards
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Organize and manage artboards
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Manage layers
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Automate and visualize data
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Automate actions
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Visualize data
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Automate actions
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Edit dynamic objects
Last updated on
Oct 27, 2025
Learn how to edit dynamic objects in Adobe Illustrator for quick, flexible design updates.
Identifying dynamic objects using XML IDs
The Variables panel displays the names of dynamic objects as they appear in the Layers panel. If you save the template in SVG format for use with other Adobe products, these object names must conform to XML naming conventions. For example, XML names must begin with a letter, underscore, or colon, and cannot contain spaces.
Illustrator automatically assigns a valid XML ID to every dynamic object you create.
Select XML ID.
Edit dynamic objects
You can change the data associated with a variable by editing the object to which it's bound. For example, if you’re working with a Visibility variable, you change the object’s visibility state in the Layers panel. Editing dynamic objects lets you create multiple data sets in the template.
Select Window > Variable.
Select a dynamic object on the artboard, or do one of the following to automatically select a dynamic object:
- Alt-click (Windows) or option-click (macOS) a variable in the Variables panel.
- Select a variable in the Variables panel and select Select Bound Object from the Variables panel menu.
- Select Select All Bound Objects from the Variables panel menu to select all dynamic objects.
Edit the data associated with the object as follows:
- Edit the text string on the artboard.
- Replace the image with the Links panel or the File > Place command for linked files.
- Edit the data for graphs in the Graph Data dialog.
- For all objects with dynamic visibility, change the state of visibility for the object in the Layers panel.
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