How To Change The Size Of The Artboard In Illustrator

How to Change Document Size in Illustrator

If y'all demand to know how to change document size in Illustrator, y'all first need to check what version of Adobe Illustrator y'all're using. Dorsum in the days of Illustrator CS3 (and before), changing the document size was a pretty unproblematic job, carried out in the aforementioned intuitive mode mutual as in many other applications.

Illustrator CS3, CS4, C5 and CS6

However, in Illustrator CS4, the concept of Multiple Artboards was introduced, meaning that but a unmarried document settings dialogue box was no longer plenty to cope.

How to Alter Document Size in Illustrator CS3 and Earlier

To create a document in Illustrator CS3 (and before) you select File/New... This opens a dialogue box that enables you to enter the values for a single folio size.

Create a new Illustrator CS3 Document

Illustrator CS3 and its previous incarnations also immune certificate size to be changed merely by providing a dialogue box into which the user entered the new values, just similar and so many other layout programs. These settings are accessible by selecting File/Certificate Setup...

How to change document size in Illustrator CS3

A dialogue box will appear that enables you to either select a preset standard page size, or enter your ain values. Here you lot can also select landscape or portrait format. Once you've entered your desired values, click OK and the certificate size will change accordingly.

Enter Illustrator CS4 (and across)...

How to Change Document Size in Illustrator CS4 and Later

All this inverse in Illustrator CS4. In the new version, multiple artboards were introduced, assuasive the user to create upward to 100 working pages, all visible in a single document layout. This meant that a single folio size dialogue box only wasn't enough for the task of resizing several different page sizes.

This means that even if you are only working with a single artboard (which most users will probably practise initially), the process of altering the folio size is completely changed. The sit-in images shown below were created using Illustrator CS6, just the options are the same for CS5 and CS4.

To create the certificate in the starting time place, everything equally it should be. Yous just select File/New... In that location's a subtle but powerful change in the dialogue box when compared to the older CS3 options. In that location's at present a 'Number of Artboards' heading followed past a numeric field which, in turn, is followed by five niggling layout control buttons. These are grayed out until a multiple number is entered into the numeric field.

Create a new Illustrator CS6 Document

For now though, we'll but create a unmarried artboard. In one case your page has been created, let's resize information technology. Select File/Document Setup...

How to change document size in Illustrator CS6

Immediately obvious by their absenteeism are any fields for entering new values, or whatever aspect ratio icons for portrait and landscape. Also, the dialogue box looks much larger than it does in CS3. This is because the Transparency and Type Options are no longer hidden by a dropdown carte du jour. The Artboards option has inverse to Bleed and View Options, and likewise new is a push in the tiptop correct corner of this area chosen Edit Artboards . This is what nosotros're looking for.

Click the Edit Artboards button. Nosotros now have a few ways of changing the folio size.

The simplest thing to do now is press the ENTER key on your keyboard. This will bring upwards the familiar Artboard Options dialogue box that we've been searching for. Enter your revised values and select your required aspect ratio (portrait or landscape) here and click enter. This will change the size of your page to whatever yous desire.

Artboard Options in Illustrator CS6

Some other mode to alter the document size is to drag the handles that show in the corners and the sides of the artboard page. Once you've washed this, pressing the ESCAPE cardinal on your keyboard volition commit the changes.
A tertiary mode to alter the document size is to enter the values into the Artboard Options bar at the top of the screen. This contains the same numeric value fields and portrait / landscape buttons equally the Artboard Options. Once you've set the correct values, printing ESCAPE or click on one of the tools in the Tool Bar to commit the changes.

Create and Edit Multiple Artboards in Illustrator

Of form, the whole point of this major change in how to change document size in Illustrator was to enable users to create multiple artboards and resize them independently of each other. You lot can test this feature by creating a new document in Illustrator and inbound, say, 4 artboards into the Number of Artboards input field.

Select 1 of the Grid past Column, Grid by Row, Arrange by Row or Arrange by Column buttons (all of whose layout arrangements tin can exist reversed by clicking the Alter to Right-to-Left Layout button). Click OK.

Creating Multiple Artboards in Illustrator CS6

How to Change Document Size in Illustrator for Multiple Artboards

This will effect in a new document containing four pages, laid out in the way y'all specified. Each of these pages (artboards) can be inverse to different sizes. To do this, select File/Certificate Size... and click the Edit Artboards button again.

Multiple artboards in Illustrator

Whichever artboard is selected volition evidence an agile dotted line around it with handles for resizing. You can change the active artboard past clicking on another and entering different settings for each one in the aforementioned mode as explained earlier.

How to change document size in Illustrator with Multiple Artboards

You lot can also add new artboards when in the Edit Artboards fashion by unproblematic dragging the cursor anywhere on the pasteboard, even over existing artboards. Commit the changes as before by either clicking a tool in the Tool Bar or by hitting ESCAPE.

Multiple artboards of different sizes in Illustrator

There are many benefits to using multiple artboards in Illustrator. In our studio, for instance, when creating a number of visuals for logo designs, nosotros used to either work on the designs in unlike documents, or (more than probable) place them in dissimilar layers, turning their visibility on and off equally required.

Now, we tin put any number (or at least whatsoever number up to 100) of visuals in a unmarried document and be able to compare them side-past-side, without having to put them all on the same chaotic page. We tin besides print or consign the document every bit a PDF with each artboard automatically treated as a different folio. Handy.