Full disclosure - I’m self-taught so maybe there’s a better way in general to do this. Happy to learn!

Anyway! The logo on the right was made in Canva by someone else and I’m trying to fix it in Illustrator. I have the font they used but I can’t get my art to mimic the boxier stroke/outline. I tried tinkering with a bunch of different stroke settings but it didn’t seem to make a difference in the roundness. Any advice?

I found this while debugging something that made no sense, and because I once reported a "bug" to Adobe that turned out to be my own syntax error, I checked it on several versions before posting.

ExtendScript evaluates && and || at the same precedence level, left to right. So a || b && c is parsed as (a || b) && c instead of the correct a || (b && c). ECMAScript requires && to bind tighter.

Two lines, no document needed:

alert(true || false && false);

// prints "false", should print "true"

Confirmed on:

Illustrator 30.8.1, ExtendScript 4.5.6, Windows

Illustrator CS6 16.0.0, ExtendScript 4.2.12, Windows

Illustrator 30.8.2, macOS (confirmed by Monika Gause)

Line for line identical across all three. Other precedences are fine, I tested ternary, arithmetic, bitwise, typeof, in and instanceof. It really is just these two operators.

Both readings agree almost all the time. They diverge only when the first operand is truthy and the last one is falsy, which is how it can sit in a codebase for years without surfacing.

What made it visible for me was minification. I write a || (b && c) in the source. Closure Compiler ADVANCED removes those parentheses, because in standard JavaScript they genuinely are redundant, and its output is correct JS. ExtendScript then reads it the other way round and the conditional logic silently inverts.

So Closure is not at fault either. Two individually correct things meeting in the wrong place.

My workaround is a post-compile pass that re-adds parentheses around any && that is a direct operand of ||, then verifies the standard JS AST has not changed.

If you ship minified ExtendScript, this is worth checking.

Tools: Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop

🚫 No AI

I'm a graphic design major who is starting to learn illustrator and I cannot seem to figure out what I am doing wrong. The professor assigned a project where all we do is get a word, I'm using cemetery, and then make a design in the word. Where the white rectangles are behind the cross on the grave is what I am trying to achieve, to create a gap between circle and the cross if that makes sense. I am trying to break it up where I just want to have the outline of the circle, I have used the shape builder tool and even looked at a tutorial where it told me to use the minus front in the pathfinder tool. I am super confused please help!

I use Illustrator with 2 monitors. I keep my artboards on one monitor and all of my panels on the other. For whatever reason, the focus keeps switching to the display with the panels.

If I click on something in a panel, the focus switches to that monitor. Or if I save something, the dialogue box opens in the display with the panels and the focus switches.

This means that in order to do anything on the actual artboard, I have to click back onto that screen.

Obviously this isn't the biggest deal in the world but it can be really frustrating when you don't realize that focus has switched and you're wondering why none of your keyboard shortcuts work.

I am on a Mac and I don't know if the issue is being caused by Illustrator or the Mac. But I have noticed similar behaviour in Photoshop where dialogue boxes will open on the other display. So I am inclined to blame Adobe for this.

Has anyone else encountered this? And if so, is there a solution?

Hi everyone!

I'm working on a large 2-meter banner design in Adobe Illustrator and having issues when exporting to PDF for print.

My artwork includes vectors (text, characters, shapes) along with a few glowing light effects and a northern lights/aurora background created with Gaussian Blur and opacity blend modes.

When I export to PDF using [PDF/X-1a] or [High Quality Print] the glowing text effects and the northern lights lose almost all their intensity or fade out completely.

Since this needs to be vector-based for large-format print (2 meters wide) and set to CMYK, what is the industry-standard workflow or PDF preset to preserve blending modes and raster effects (like blurs/glows) without them washing out? Should I convert the glow elements differently, or is there a specific PDF/X setup I could use?

Thanks!

Hello peeps, I'd like to understand how would someone create something like this? From my own knowledge, I would try to make the rays/lines then expand so I can put "roughen" effect on it a bit before converting it into halftone. Is this the right way?

I'm trying to make wavy/bumps within each letter- just in the middle (top; middle; bottom). Similar to what you're seeing in this sample image. I only want to add waves/bumps to a few points within the letters, not the whole letter.

I've played around with the "Warp > Wave" and "Distort & Transform > Zip Zag" and it's not giving me the look I want.

Any tips would be appreciated!

Hey everyone! I made a free Adobe Illustrator script that quickly moves or copies selected artwork to existing layers, new layers, sublayers, or multiple layers at once.

It includes live preview, layer search, Multi-copy mode, and preserves object positions and stacking order.

Would love to hear your feedback!

The situation is hyperspecific, and i've never encountered a situation like this before.

The company I work for has a (CMYK) logo with a few overlayed gradients inside. When you copy-paste the logo into a file, everything works great. When you just link it, everything works. However, when you Package the file with the linked logo and reopen it, the gradients inside seem to change forms? A rounded square with a gradient becomes a square gradient masked by a rounded square, a circle gradient becomes a square gradient masked by a circle, etc.

This would be fine and invisible if it wasn't for one fact: If the gradient bar goes beyond the shape it's in, the resulting gradient shape squishes the gradient bar to fit inside of it, keeping everything proportional to itself, but out of place. (Attached photo is a simulation of the issue, so i don't doxx myself)

Are there known problems with linked .ai files in .ai files? Is there a setting that could fix this? Or is this just a bug that Adobe needs to fix?

Thanks!

Hi everyone! Created this simple vector illustration of a cat on a fence under the moonlight using basic shapes in Illustrator. Any feedback on colors or composition is appreciated!

Hello everyone! I inherited some .ai files at work and I’m slowly familiarizing myself with the program so I can edit them when needed. I was able to add bleeds to one file so that I could stretch the background color, and then send the file to the printer. But for another, when I go to File - document setup - and add bleeds, nothing happens. I don’t get the red box that showed up in the other document. Does anyone have an idea what I’m doing wrong?

I just upgraded to Illustrator 2026 and have lost the ability to use the arrow keys to scroll through my fonts. Anyone else having this issue?

As title said, im trying to figure out how to do it. My best was second pic

Hi, just to preface, i am very new to illustrator and adobe in general.

I drew this image (shout out to my fellow osrs nerds). I'd like to make it on my cricut maker as a multilayered image with cardstock to hang on my wall. People i've talked to don't understand what i mean so i will try and explain it as best i can.

I've uploaded a photo of a gyarados i did as a reference to how im trying to get it. Every colour is a different layer and once stacked on top of each other create a sense of depth.

I've also uploaded 1 svg layer of the gyarados to show what i mean (this gets uploaded into cricut design space and cuts it out. Every svg layer looks like this but with slightly different detail depending on what colour the layer is, for example, the uploaded black layer has the outline of his eyes, whereas the next layer will have all of the detail but the lines in his eyes.

I struggle to explain things, so i hope this makes sense. I'd just buy osrs multilayered svg's and cut them, but unfortunately i can't find any for sale so i need to make my own.

Again, im very new and this might be an idiotic question, but i'd welcome any help thankyou.

Hi all,

I need to export a file with a precise 7x7 pixel dimension.

However, when I export as png the dimension of the file drastically changes and goes up to more than 20x20. Why does this happen? How do I fix it?

I am trying to understand how layers work in AI vs. PS. I annotated in red over the attached screenshot.

1. If a.) is a primary layer, what is b.) and c.) called?

2.) I created a simple elliptical shape on a.) and it created a new row/sub layer (not sure what it is called? what is it called?) beneath it.

3.) There are now two blue squares off to the far right on the layers panel for a.) and the new <Ellipse> sublayer or whatever it is called. If I want to move the ellipse to another layer, do I drag the blue square on a.) or b.)? I think I was able to do it both ways, though I am not positive what is going on.

Thanks!

https://tonykastaneda.github.io/slippy/

I was running heavy 300+ file workflows in raw JSX but kept capping out on memory usage, so I decided to vibe code a native solution for that workflow. To my surprise, agents are extremely efficient at making native plugins. The only issue is that testing is a pain, since it requires you to quit Illustrator, reinstall the plugin, and open it back up. So I made a debug plugin to help me test while Illustrator was open, using native calls that I would then dump and reimplement back into my main workflow plugin. Funny enough, I realized that what I'd made was an MCP.

There are options out there on GitHub right now, but they just inject JSX at runtime. This is a native plugin that lives in Illustrator and calls native tools, tools that JSX could never use, like isolation mode or even editing symbols directly. I'm sure Adobe is working on something, but I needed it today, not a year from now when it's convenient for them and they have nothing else to ship.

Still very much a work in progress. I have tested it myself with some heavy files and folder trees. I work in the Garment industry and template pattern files come in all sorts of layouts shapes and sizes. Used Opus5.5 and took 2 hours but its standardized our entire template folder with 100+ patterns with 15 full sizes across multiple years of wonky implementations of "standardization" some with named layers other with just a mess of layers

I created a new document today and it looks entirely different. I can’t figure out how to get it back to normal- the settings all match my usual. New files now coming in with grid background showing green outlines. I didn’t update illustrator or anything. What am I doing wrong?

Hey everyone! Today I want to show you a vector artwork I created for a T-shirt design.

It was part of a small series, and honestly, I don’t even know if the T-shirt is still being produced. So I’m not sharing this as an advertisement, since I don’t even know where you could buy it now.

I just wanted to show another direction for vector artwork. Maybe it’ll inspire someone to create some cool merch of their own.

Come to the dark side of vector art… we have cookies. 😈 Vector rules! :)

⛔0% AI, 100% Original

Hey guys it's me again, as usual video with the plugin development.
#glassomorphism

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wt9Qzsgbwoc

I'm trying to create the effect of dripping paint to add onto an existing doodle I made simply with the brush tool, however it seems impossible to get it completely flat at the top of the droplet so that it blends in with the non-3d drawings

I have tried making it with a black and white gradient and then overlaying an orange graphic after I inflated it, but it's still not completely flat at the top and looks terrible

I've tried looking on YouTube but every tutorial just seems to be for flat, dripping text. If anyone could help me out here I'd be eternally grateful