- Illustrator User Guide
- Get to know Illustrator
- Introduction to Illustrator
- Workspace
- Workspace basics
- Learn faster with the Illustrator Discover panel
- Create documents
- Toolbar
- Default keyboard shortcuts
- Customize keyboard shortcuts
- Introduction to artboards
- Manage artboards
- Customize the workspace
- Properties panel
- Set preferences
- Touch Workspace
- Microsoft Surface Dial support in Illustrator
- Undo edits and manage design history
- Rotate view
- Rulers, grids, and guides
- Accessibility in Illustrator
- Safe Mode
- View artwork
- Use the Touch Bar with Illustrator
- Files and templates
- Tools in Illustrator
- Tools at a glance
- Select tools
- Navigate tools
- Paint tools
- Text tools
- Draw tools
- Modify tools
- Generative AI (not available in mainland China)
- Quick actions
- Illustrator on the web (beta)
- Illustrator on the web (beta) overview
- Illustrator on the web (beta) FAQ
- Troubleshooting issues FAQ
- Keyboard shortcuts for Illustrator on the web (beta)
- Create and combine shapes on the web
- Add and edit text on the web
- Apply colors and gradients on the web
- Draw and edit paths on the web
- Work with cloud documents on the web
- Invite collaborators to edit on the web
- Illustrator on the iPad
- Introduction to Illustrator on the iPad
- Workspace
- Documents
- Select and arrange objects
- Drawing
- Type
- Work with images
- Color
- Cloud documents
- Basics
- Troubleshooting
- Add and edit content
- Drawing and dimensioning
- Drawing basics
- Edit paths
- Draw pixel-perfect art
- Draw with the Pen, Curvature, or Pencil tool
- Draw simple lines and shapes
- Draw rectangular and polar grids
- Draw and edit flares
- Image Trace
- Simplify a path
- Symbolism tools and symbol sets
- Adjust path segments
- Design a flower in 5 easy steps
- Create and edit a perspective grid
- Draw and modify objects on a perspective grid
- Use objects as symbols for repeat use
- Draw pixel-aligned paths for web workflows
- Measure and plot dimensions
- 3D objects and materials
- Color
- Painting
- Select and arrange objects
- Reshape objects
- Crop images
- Transform objects
- Combine objects
- Cut, divide, and trim objects
- Puppet Warp
- Scale, shear, and distort objects
- Blend objects
- Reshape using envelopes
- Reshape objects with effects
- Build new shapes with Shaper and Shape Builder tools
- Work with Live Corners
- Enhanced reshape workflows with touch support
- Edit clipping masks
- Live shapes
- Create shapes using the Shape Builder tool
- Global editing
- Type
- Add text and work with type objects
- Create bulleted and numbered lists
- Manage text area
- Fonts and typography
- Convert text within images into editable text
- Add basic formatting to text
- Add advanced formatting to text
- Import and export text
- Format paragraphs
- Special characters
- Create type on a path
- Character and paragraph styles
- Tabs
- Find missing fonts (Typekit workflow)
- Arabic and Hebrew type
- Fonts | FAQ and troubleshooting tips
- Create 3D text effect
- Creative typography designs
- Scale and rotate type
- Line and character spacing
- Hyphenation and line breaks
- Spelling and language dictionaries
- Format Asian characters
- Composers for Asian scripts
- Create text designs with blend objects
- Create a text poster using Image Trace
- Create special effects
- Web graphics
- Drawing and dimensioning
- Import, export, and save
- Import
- Creative Cloud Libraries in Illustrator
- Save and export
- Printing
- Prepare for printing
- Printing
- Automate tasks
- Troubleshooting
Illustrator is now available on the iPad. See Illustrator on the iPad FAQs.
Basics
Adobe Illustrator is the industry-standard vector graphics software used worldwide by designers of all types who want to create digital graphics, illustrations, and typography for all kinds of media: print, web, interactive, video, and mobile. Learn more about Illustrator at https://creativecloud.adobe.com/en/learn/illustrator/web/what-is-illustrator.
As Illustrator is part of Adobe Creative Cloud, you get access to all the latest updates and future releases the moment they’re available. Learn more about Creative Cloud.
Vector graphics are one of the two most commonly used graphic formats in design, the other being bitmap (or raster) graphics. Vector graphics, like those created with Illustrator, are resolution independent, which means they can be resized infinitely with no loss of quality. For example, the same logo design created with Illustrator can be used on a business card or an outdoor billboard, maintaining the accuracy and detail of the original design.
See the What’s New page for details.
Technical questions
See the system requirements for information.
With native 64-bit support, Illustrator can take full advantage of the available RAM on your system. Many users will see additional performance gains as they add more RAM, with 8 GB of RAM being a good baseline, particularly if you run multiple applications simultaneously.
GPU Performance is available for both macOS and Windows, and it works with various GPUs. For more information, see GPU Performance on the Illustrator Help pages.
Graphics Processing Unit (GPU)-accelerated computing offers significant boosts to application performance by offloading compute-intensive operations to the GPU, while the rest of the application runs on the CPU. GPU acceleration for vector graphics is relatively new territory; today most rendering of vector graphics takes place on the CPU.
For more information, see GPU performance on the Illustrator Help pages.
For customers using Windows tablets, Illustrator offers a Touch workspace that surfaces the essential tools and controls for drawing and editing with a pressure sensitive pen and multi-touch gestures.
Illustrator also brings multitouch capabilities to the Touch Type, Free Transform, and Path Segment Reshape tools. These touch capabilities provide new ways to work with natural, intuitive gestures right on the screen when using display devices that support multitouch, such as the Wacom Cintiq 24HD touch display or Windows tablets.
Plug-ins designed for earlier versions of Illustrator will not work with Illustrator and must be updated. Vendors of the more popular plug-ins have been working to make new versions available as quickly as possible. For a list of available plug-ins, visit the plug-ins page. For more information, contact the plug-in manufacturer directly.
CJK fonts are not included in the Package folder created with the Package feature in Illustrator because of geographic licensing restrictions for those fonts. This is also the case with the same feature in InDesign.
The darker UI in Illustrator is set by default to match other Adobe professional products like Photoshop, InDesign, and Adobe Premiere Pro. You can easily change the brightness in the Preferences dialog box. Choose Edit > Preferences > User Interface (Windows) or Illustrator > Preferences > User Interface (macOS).
See the system requirements for information.
See the system requirements for information.
Free trials
With a free Creative Cloud membership, you can download a trial version of Illustrator and other applications in Creative Cloud. When you upgrade to All Apps plan, you will be able to download the full version of every Creative Cloud application.
If you were prompted to enter your payment details before downloading Illustrator, the trial automatically converts to a paid plan after the trial period ends. Otherwise, you can purchase a plan directly from the Creative Cloud website.
Purchasing options
You can purchase the Illustrator Single App plan or the Creative Cloud All Apps plan. Explore the benefits of the Creative Cloud All Apps plan.
Learning Illustrator
Check out Illustrator Learn & Support for all you need to get started, with video and step-by-step-tutorials as well as comprehensive product support from Adobe and our knowledgeable community.
You can find web version of the Illustrator manual on the User guide page.
You can follow Illustrator on Facebook and Twitter and find informative tutorials on the Illustrator tutorials page.