Adobe Illustrator on desktop release notes

Feature updates

• Use the enhanced font browser to find, apply, and organize fonts.
• Preview and pick colors faster with the enhanced color picker.
• Apply dithering to gradients to reduce banding and create smooth transitions.
• Use perceptual interpolation in gradients for more natural color blends.
• Start with ready-to-use gradient presets to speed up projects or spark inspiration.
• Snap lines tangentially to arcs or circles.
• Snap paths perpendicular to lines or curves.
• Access artboard actions like Duplicate, Rename, Lock, Export and more directly with a right-click.
• Export selected artboards directly from the canvas.
• Lock all objects on an artboard instantly to prevent accidental edits.
• Apply background colors to artboards for better visual clarity and easier workspace management.
• View artboard labels directly on the canvas and rename them in place for faster organization.
• Easily spot the active or selected artboard with a clearer black border.
• Save complex edits in your artwork faster with the enhanced Save in Background setting.
• Recover your work quickly and reliably after an unexpected crash with the enhanced Save in Background setting.
• Experience real-time on-canvas editing with move, scale, rotate, and duplicate operations without lag or interruptions. 
• Create shared spaces in Projects to organize and collaborate on your files.
• Access Generation history   from the Illustrator homescreen or workspace to work with the raster images generated on the Firefly website.
• Find the template you need directly from the Illustrator homescreen and refine it in Express.
• Choose between Firefly Vector 4 and Firefly Vector 3 models to generate scenes, subjects, and icons (unavailable in mainland China).
• Use the Generative AI   button in the toolbar or the Object > Generative menu to access all generative AI features in one place (unavailable in mainland China).
• Hide the perspective grid easily with the new, distinct Hide Grid   widget.

System updates

• With version 30.0, Illustrator has dropped support for macOS Monterey (version 12), Windows 11 v22H2, and v21H2 devices.

Fixed issues

• While dragging an artboard's anchor point to align with an object, the alignment snaps to the cursor rather than the actual anchor.
• All text objects in a document disappear unexpectedly upon opening the file.
• Image map URL links disappear in exported PDFs.
• Exporting files with large amounts of outlined text using the High Quality Print preset produces corrupted PDFs on macOS.
• Illustrator freezes or slows down during file save.
• Pattern fills don't scale with objects when transforming objects.
• Placed PNG image cannot be selected or moved after scaling. 
• The Save dialog defaults to a PDF file instead of an .ai file for new documents.
• Function keys (F6 to F9) don't work for Japanese input conversion (e.g., Hiragana, Katakana, etc).
• Pressing the Esc key fails to exit text editing mode.
• Drop shadows render inconsistently.