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Rant Help Make Our Lives Better: Reform Illustrator's Canvas Size Limit

spooledUP7

New Member
Or.... Give up the fight and switch to CorelDraw

I am actually a hardcore Flexi power user, but Illustrator is still a very necessary tool to be proficient in considering the marketing and advertising needs for clients of a sign business.
I have used Corel several times but it carries some of the excessive menu features that I dislike about Illustrator. I prefer a more intuitive GUI to my creative temperament vs the analytical approach both Corel and Illustrator display. For some more mentally organized people Corel fits like a glove, but for me it's a tight and confining glove.

Back on topic, Illustrator is (like it or not) THE industry standard for vector design software and it is appalling to see Adobe ignore this basic and necessary application feature for over two decades. It makes zero sense from my perspective to limit the canvas size, and if there is a logical reason Adobe has yet to openly disclose so. I am sure there is something baked into the OG code that causes a black-hole to materialize but you would think after 20 plus years they would have ironed it out.

[HASHTAG]#downwith227[/HASHTAG]
 

Solventinkjet

DIY Printer Fixing Guide
I'm not sure why you would need unlimited space for vector graphics. If you have to do something large just build it to scale and have the RIP enlarge it. I worked as a graphic designer for a few years before transitioning to the tech side of things and I never needed to make anything nearly as big as the limit is. I usually would work at scale on large jobs as a default because it was simply easier to manage.
 

Gino

Premium Subscriber
Did you ever learn to scale ??

Why is it really necessary top design at full size ?? They don't have drawings for a skyscraper at full size. They don't have full sized drawings for jets and other aircraft. Did you ever see a full sized drawing for a stadium ??

Actually the real reason is...... Illustrator was never meant to be used for sign making. It was a desktop type illustrating program. The sizes they can go up to was far more than needed for any work to be created on these machines. Programs like Gerber, ANA, Cadlink and all the others are your sign designing programs which have unlimited canvases. Do your thing in Flexi and then scale it to your needs for illustrator.
 

shoresigns

New Member
This comes up a lot, and I do wish Adobe would fix it, but in the meantime it's really not that difficult to just design in 1:10 scale. All you have to do is move the decimal to the left.
 

spooledUP7

New Member
Gino, you must be an analytically organized person and what you say is true, but working in scale opens the opportunity for error. Error cost time and money and for me, I like concrete numbers to confirm my intent while designing.
Flexi and Corel offer no such limitations and so when I am working on an 18 wheeler show hauler I am 100% confident that what I see is what I get without factoring any calculations no mater how simplistic the conversion is.
For me this is my standard operational procedure and based on the evidence coming from the overwhelming majority of comments on the Adobe board I feel not alone in my opinion regarding the canvas limits.

I realize it's a petty request but since I bump into this limitation multiple times a week I am simply expressing my annoyance and trying to rally other like minded people to petition for a change.
 

shoresigns

New Member
working in scale opens the opportunity for error.

Sure, if you work in idiotic scales like 1:2, 1:4, etc. Files that are in 1:10 scale are easy for production to flag even if the designer forgets to make a note of it. We've been doing all our files in either 1:1 or 1:10 for years and never had an issue.
 

spooledUP7

New Member
Sure, if you work in idiotic scales like 1:2, 1:4, etc. Files that are in 1:10 scale are easy for production to flag even if the designer forgets to make a note of it. We've been doing all our files in either 1:1 or 1:10 for years and never had an issue.
I am not saying scale isn't easy, but 100% is easier. I prefer easier. I use Flexi with the built in Rip and Print so my workflow is as simple as designing full scale, selecting object to print, and send to rip without any need to upscale. What I see is what I get.
I'm not dissing anyone's workflow or software. If you prefer 227" limitation to your canvas size then you should feel right at home. For me, I don't.
 

nickgreyink

New Member
Did you ever learn to scale ??

Why is it really necessary top design at full size ?? They don't have drawings for a skyscraper at full size. They don't have full sized drawings for jets and other aircraft. Did you ever see a full sized drawing for a stadium ??

Actually the real reason is...... Illustrator was never meant to be used for sign making. It was a desktop type illustrating program. The sizes they can go up to was far more than needed for any work to be created on these machines. Programs like Gerber, ANA, Cadlink and all the others are your sign designing programs which have unlimited canvases. Do your thing in Flexi and then scale it to your needs for illustrator.
But Illustrator is used for more than computers now. Shoot if it was just for computer why did they include the ability to export in CMYK color values? It's used in vastly more areas of work and life in general than just creating small desktop applications. Add the fact that it's the gold standard and used by nearly everyone, to some degree, in the design industry means it should be able to be flexible to fit all these.

I agree with spooled when they talk about it opening up more room for error by working in scale.
 

rmaclucy

New Member
I agree with spooled, if you neglect to note the scale on the art, some other designer opens it up and prints what they see. I've seen it happen over and over again.
In a perfect world, the bosses that be, would buy me Flexi.
 

WildWestDesigns

Active Member
Gino, you must be an analytically organized person and what you say is true, but working in scale opens the opportunity for error. Error cost time and money and for me, I like concrete numbers to confirm my intent while designing.

As you do something correctly more and more, the % of error is less. It will never be zero, no matter what you do, but it will be less providing you are doing everything correctly.

Regardless if doing it in scale or 1:1, the numbers are no less concrete.

I saw some other posts while I was typing this. Part of doing it correctly is making note of the scale being used, regardless if it's going to a 3rd party or not.

Flexi and Corel offer no such limitations and so when I am working on an 18 wheeler show hauler I am 100% confident that what I see is what I get without factoring any calculations no mater how simplistic the conversion is.

Depends on the target audience of the software. While DRAW and Ai are both general vector creation programs, the bigger customer demographic may be different between the two. Or where the programs happened to find their niche and the respective vendor's started tailoring them to that demographic.


For me this is my standard operational procedure and based on the evidence coming from the overwhelming majority of comments on the Adobe board I feel not alone in my opinion regarding the canvas limits.

Be careful in this regard. Most people go to forums to find issues of problems that they are having, so forums tend to be skewed to a certain perception (which is typically negative as they are there because they have issues). I'm lucky in what I need to do, this is a non issue for me, but that isn't everyone. When I do have issues with something, I either employ a work around (in this case, as others have mentioned, work in scale) or I use a different program that doesn't have that limitation.

When dealing with closed source programs (which tend to have a different mindset with feature integration), your always going to be beholding to someone to get it implemented, so it's not all that strange to have to employ work arounds or go to a competitor's program.

I realize it's a petty request but since I bump into this limitation multiple times a week I am simply expressing my annoyance and trying to rally other like minded people to petition for a change.

It doesn't hurt to do that for sure, but if Ai is that integral into your design workflow, then I would employ the working in scale workaround just in case. Or relegate Ai to just an "as needed" program (typically for client provided files) and just do all your in house work in a program that doesn't have said limitations. Otherwise, you'll be at Adobe's beck and call if/when they get this feature implemented.


Bare in mind too, we are also talking about mature programs (30 yrs or so), while a feature may seem to be simple, sometimes dealing with the code, there may need more cleaning up then one realizes.
 

spooledUP7

New Member
Yikes. Illustrator will always be an integral part of my business, it's unavoidable. I "work around" it in scale daily. I dislike it. Is it hard? No. Do I like it? No. Do I want change? Yes. Do other's want change? Yes (evidence shown with my initial hyperlink to the Adobe "How Can We Improve Illustrator" customer suggestion website. Here's the link in case anyone missed it.

My banner still waves for change. Not for justice, or oppression, but for efficiency. My efficiency, and other like minded users. For everyone else, you have no need to ask for change, but I suppose you could fight for no change. To each their own.

Happy vector nodes everyone!
 

WildWestDesigns

Active Member
Yikes. Illustrator will always be an integral part of my business, it's unavoidable. I "work around" it in scale daily. I dislike it. Is it hard? No. Do I like it? No. Do I want change? Yes. Do other's want change? Yes (evidence shown with my initial hyperlink to the Adobe "How Can We Improve Illustrator" customer suggestion website. Here's the link in case anyone missed it.

I don't really think that 213 yes voters and 109 comments (even if they were all unique for a total of 322), I would say that's a small portion. Factor in 30 yrs or so of bloated code, it may or may not be as easy as one thinks. Maybe, maybe not, but I don't know how likely it's going to happen. But then again, since I stopped at CS6, for me it will never happen.

My banner still waves for change.

Change is good, especially considering efficiency, I just don't know how likely that's going to happen, especially considering it's not stopping anyone from still getting Ai.
 

Breezy85

New Member
It doesn't bother me really. I just design at half the size or quarter of the size depending on what the job is, then enlarge it in the print software. Boom and done. I printed 20+ foot banners like this.
 

Gino

Premium Subscriber
Does this look familiar ?? :banghead:

Anyway, if this is one of your biggest pet peeves, ya ought go looking for some other problems that really could influence your life. You gotta get out more.................
 

OADesign

New Member
I'm straddling the fence on this one. I used to be hardcore team [HASHTAG]#downwith227[/HASHTAG]. Who has time to wait for Adobe to get with the program? Plus I'm still team [HASHTAG]#CS6[/HASHTAG]. Not going to upgrade to the subscription model anytime soon. So even if Adobe did make this change, I wouldn't see it anyway. You know how it is in the shop. You make due with the tool in hand. If you really think about it, why do you "need" and larger art board? Illy files are often super complex and makes huge file sizes some times. Larger art boards would only exponentially compound this problem. Especially with us designers that don't properly optimize our images..;). Then there are those fresh off campus "designers" that get scale 'rithmatic all wrong... :rolleyes: So why deal with any of it. Simple easy way to get it done.
JUST MOVE THE DECIMAL POINT. No fancy math to remember. Ratio is always spot on. And as far as raster images, the resolution becomes less and less of an issue the larger the image gets, right? So just slide the dot.
4' x 20' > 4.8" x 24" and so on. Make sense?
 

eahicks

Magna Cum Laude - School of Hard Knocks
Well then why not ask them to increase it in Photoshop too? And InDesign? I don't see any point in it, like already mentioned.....design in scale.
 

Rick

Certified Enneadecagon Designer
I would prefer the option of limitless canvas size so I can send files to production,
but all the signs I design must be designed to architectural and/or engineers scale
because the signs need to be processed by a municipality for permitting, architects
(who happen to also design in scale) property owners, property managers, production
and fabrication, vendors for pricing, and all of them require submittals in scale.

As far as mistakes, it's the production designer to double check to verify if scale
and measurements calculate correctly before hitting print/cut/rout...
 
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