Introduction to artboards

Last updated on Sep 11, 2025

Learn more about artboards in Adobe Illustrator.

Artboards let you streamline the design process and work on designs on an infinite canvas. In Adobe Illustrator, an artboard is like a sheet of white paper that forms the base for your artistic work. You can use the provided presets for popular devices or create custom-sized artboards to design your artwork. You can also export or print them.

When you create a document or open a new file in Illustrator, you can select your artboard’s preset and dimensions. If you have more than one design, you can add or create multiple artboards. You can also resize, rename, duplicate, and remove artboards according to your requirements.

To begin working with artboards, make sure the Artboards, Properties, and Control panels are easily accessible. After creating or opening a document, enable these panels by selecting them from the Window menu.

Panel

Location

Function

Artboards

Window > Artboards

Lists all artboards, allows adding new artboards, reordering, renaming, and resizing.

Properties

Window > Properties

Displays artboard size, position, name, preset, rearrange, and move and scale artwork with artboard options.

Control

Window > Control

Provides quick access to the dimensions, position, and name of the selected artwork.