Even more speed, precision, and power: Get started with the latest Illustrator and InDesign features for creative professionals

Adobe MAX is here at last, and this means we can finally reveal the new innovations and enhanced core features that we have been working on for Adobe Illustrator and Adobe InDesign. They will optimize your creative workflows and give you more control, so you can spend more time doing the task that matters most — creating.

The development process has been largely driven by you, our global community of creatives, and the feedback you’ve given us. We love hearing from you whether it’s online via Adobe Live or in-person at Create Now and Creative Jam events, as well as our dedicated communities for Illustrator and InDesign. Telling us what you need as your workflows evolve is invaluable, so we can respond by giving you just the right tools to make your life easier.

So, without further ado, here’s what’s new in Illustrator and InDesign. Make sure you update your apps to the latest version to access these features and give them a try!

What’s new in Illustrator

We listened to you on UserVoice, social channels, and Illustrator community forums, to find out more about your most pressing needs and how we can help you improve your most common Illustrator workflows. From new ways to align, arrange, and move objects to improvements made to the Image Trace and Mockup features, here’s what you can use today:

Unlock new ways to create with Objects on Path

Aligning objects is a common task in Illustrator and previously you were limited to only aligning linear objects. You told us that you wanted more flexibility working with objects, which would allow for more experimentation in creating unique designs. So we built Objects on Path, a new Illustrator feature that lets you quickly attach, arrange, and move objects of any kind along any shaped path, unlocking new ways to design in Illustrator.

With Objects on Path, now you can align objects on any path you define, including linear,

circular, rectangular, or even curve-linear paths. Objects stick to the path and will change as you move it, and you can also easily change where the objects are attached, spacing between the objects, and angle of rotation — all resulting in a new way to work with objects in your workflow.

Convert raster images more accurately with enhanced Image Trace

We’ve learned from you that Image Trace is one of your most used features in Illustrator. Creatives like you often sketch on paper or by using apps like Adobe Photoshop or Adobe Fresco, then turn those drawings into vector graphics for precision and scalability. However, the images you bring in from Photoshop, for example, are sometimes not captured accurately enough to quickly use for a printed brochure. So with this in mind, we’ve improved Image Trace by making this workflow easier, faster, and — crucially — more accurate for further editing and customization.

The latest version of the Image Trace feature creates crisper vectorized outputs with cleaner lines that are more accurate to the original image, including new gradient support. Vectorized outputs also have fewer anchor points, with the option to group paths in the layer panel and have transparent backgrounds not traced as white, which results in improved editability.

Create realistic prototypes with Mockup

Many designers have been asking for the ability to easily create high-quality visual prototypes of art on physical objects like product packaging, apparel, or signage. This resulted in the Mockup tool in Illustrator, and since we launched it a few months ago, we listened to your feedback to refine it further.

We’re excited to announce that the improved Mockup tool is now out of beta, and the latest improvements include a streamlined UX (for example, you can now drag-drop and double-click mockups directly onto your artboard) and the ability to bring in your own raster images and save a template of your frequently used images to speed up your workflow.

Better wrapping around the edges of objects means your vector art will automatically adjust more precisely to the raster image, and we heard you especially liked how it interacts with the contours of fabric.

Even more productivity and performance enhancements

We’re always looking for additional ways to make your Illustrator workflows faster and smoother, so you can be more productive and ultimately more creative. For even more productivity tips, check out these 10 highly requested features for Illustrator and InDesign that are all available now.

Here’s an overview of the key improvements that will give you a speed boost:

• Quickly create gradients: Create gradients directly from the selected swatches. Simply select the colors from the swatch panel and click the ‘create gradient’ option in the swatch menu (or drag and drop them onto the gradient panel). Apply the new gradient to your artwork or save them to your swatches.
• Automatically resize art with artboard: Now you can choose if the artwork within your artboard scales automatically as you resize your artboard.
• Work up to 5x faster with linked images: We’re bringing multithreading capabilities to Illustrator, which will lead to faster response times when working with linked images for on-canvas editing workflows, including move, scale, rotate and copying images.
• Precisely select objects with the new enclosed mode: Only fully enclosed objects will now be selected when you marquee select the objects using the selection or group selection tool.
• Export Illustrator files as PDFs in seconds: You can now export as PDF in Illustrator. Simply go to File > Export > Export As and select ‘PDF’ from the drop-down. The exported PDF is optimized for shareability and reduced file size.

What’s new in InDesign

There’s loads happening in InDesign as well! The innovations we’re bringing to InDesign, directly driven from user feedback and requests, will improve your workflows, simplify common actions, and enhance collaboration — which all save you valuable time.

Extend images with Generative Expand

Images that don’t quite fit pose one of the biggest frustrations for designers, as adjusting them or having to find new ones is very time-consuming. We heard this time and time again from you, and it’s the reason we created Generative Expand, powered by Adobe Firefly. Now your existing images can be extended to fit your layout in seconds.

Since we introduced Generative Expand a few months ago, we have refined this feature further, and as of today, it’s out of beta! It’s now even easier to use and produces more accurate results: Quickly resize an existing graphic or document beyond their original borders to fit new dimensions in seconds, saving otherwise extensive manual work. The generated artwork is seamless to the original artwork, and the generated images can also be opened in Photoshop to further fine-tune.

No more needing to source a new image or manually adjusting or resizing the existing one: Without leaving InDesign, extend the image in question to fit your layout, either by simply clicking “Generate” or using a text prompt to specify how to expand the image.

Disclaimer: Generative Expand is currently available wherever Adobe provides services and designed to be safe for commercial use. It’s not available for users in China mainland.

Open and edit InDesign files in Adobe Express

Having to individually update documents with small changes that are being requested by non-designers (for example, the marketing or sales team) takes time and is frustrating. We hear you. That’s why we built a seamless Adobe Express integration for InDesign, which allows you to create just one standard template that can be edited for content.

Set up a document in InDesign, then export it to Adobe Express with one click, where non-designers can then make edits for their specific needs (for example, to update the pricing or the contact info). You can also lock elements of the InDesign document to ensure brand consistency before sharing it with other Adobe Express users.

Create images from text prompts with Text to Image

Searching and sourcing images for a document you’re working on is another time-consuming task. To help you speed up your workflow, we created Text to Image, another feature powered by Adobe Firefly, which you can use to easily create and add images to your project with a simple text prompt — all in seconds, from within InDesign.

Since we launched it in beta at Adobe MAX London back in April, you told us that you’re finding Text to Image especially useful for brainstorming and concepting layout ideas. So we’re delighted to announce it’s now generally available: Provide a brief description of the photo or art you want to generate, and InDesign will swiftly provide multiple variations for you to explore. Try out the variants and select the one that suits your layout.

Disclaimer: Text to Image is currently available wherever Adobe provides services and designed to be safe for commercial use. It’s not available for users in China mainland.

Insert MathML in InDesign

Working with math equations for the layout of technical documents, textbooks, and manuals is complicated. Baselines must be manually manipulated, and adjustments can be tedious and require a lot of time. Up to now, you had to rely on third-party plugins that can be expensive, screenshots, or other workarounds.

But not anymore! To simplify the workflow for you, we’ve come up with a new feature that enables you to directly insert MathML as an SVG in InDesign. Expression styles can be modified by adjusting the font size and color to match the rest of the document design. This results in better visual quality as well as accessibility, as MathML will structure the equation as text so assistive technologies can read it but it can also scale up for improved visibility.

Generate Effects in InDesign (Beta)

InDesign documents can be text-heavy and we heard from you that you’d like a quick and easy way to add a little flair to your layouts, making them more visually appealing.

Now with Generate Effects, powered by Adobe Firefly, you can add effects — like textures, graphics, patterns, or imagery — within a shape, vectors, or even letters. This new feature is available in the InDesign Beta app for you to try out. Download it from the Beta section in the Creative Cloud Desktop (CCD) app.

Even more productivity enhancements

And there’s more! We recently also launched these features based on top user requests that will speed up the way you work:

• Manage document changes with ease using the new History Panel: Browse the list of actions taken on a document created during your current working session. Revert your document to a selected state, delete one, or create a new document from it.
• Publish InDesign documents online: Repurpose your print documents by creating password-protected digital versions that you can manage and share online.
• Save and access cloud documents: Save, organize, and share InDesign files as cloud documents to enhance productivity and promote efficient teamwork.

Try out the new features to optimize your workflow

Improving Illustrator and InDesign to fit the way you work and make everyday life easier for you is a two-way dialogue. Your feedback is key in shaping the future of our apps, and our product, design, and engineering teams are always monitoring user asks, so they can respond as quickly as possible.

We’re never finished, our door is always open and we welcome your input all year round. If you have feedback on our apps, you can tag #AdobeIllustrator or #AdobeInDesign in your social post or add ideas at illustrator.uservoice.com (for Illustrator) or indesign.uservoice.com (for InDesign).

So, thank you so much for your help and please continue sharing your workflow challenges or ideas with us. We encourage you to give the features outlined in this blog post a try and let us know what you think. Experiment with all the new features by updating both Illustrator and InDesign to the latest versions today. And stay tuned for more announcements at Adobe MAX!