Changing the size and shape of artboards in Illustrator CS6
In this movie, I will show you how to change the change the shape and size of your artboards.
Now the first thing I would like you to do, just to make sure that you and I are on the same page, is to go up to the View menu, and make sure that the Smart Guides command is turned on.
If you see a check mark everything's good, if not go ahead and choose the command, you also have the keyboard shortcut of Ctrl+U and Command+U on a Mac.
What Smart Guides do is they allow you to align objects inside of your illustrations as well as artboards on the fly.
Next step, of course, is to switch to Artboard tool, you can get by pressing Shift+O, or you can just click on it here inside the toolbox.
But before I do that, I want you to notice something.
At this point, you can see that page 1 is active because it has a black outline, whereas page 2 or Artboard 2 if you prefer is not selected nor or any of the others, because they have gray outlines.
If you click on let's say Artboard 4, you can see that it gets the black outline because
it's now active and the others are inactive.
You'll also see a number 4 down here in the bottom left corner of the window.
Illustrator goes ahead and numbers Artboards automatically, in the order you create them.
You can override that however that I will show you in a later movie.
Now I will go ahead and switch to the Artboard tool and notice that Artboard 4 is highlighted.
So I just want you to see that artboard that's selected in a standard mode also become selected here inside Artboard mode.
I am going to go ahead and switch back to Artboard 1 by clicking on it and notice that
you have these handles that are surrounding the Artboard.
If you drag one of the handles then you will resize Artboard on the fly and see those green lines, those are the Smart Guides.
So I have got one Smart Guide on the far right side of artboard and another down there at
the bottom that's showing me that I have a center intersection.
So I know that I'm exactly aligned to the right side of pages 2 and 6 as well as the
Now, I am going to drag this bottom handle down until I get alignment with the bottom
of those artboards, and I now have this large artboard that includes 1, 2, 5, and 6 and
has independent artboards inside of it for 2, 5, and 6, which can be a very useful way
to work if you want to have one larger artboard that includes all the artwork inside of a
document, for example, as well as independent artboards for each item.
It's a great way to organize and control the output of your artboard.
You also have some options that are available to you up here in the Options bar.
Notice that I have these orientation icon, so I can switch from Portrait to Landscape
just by clicking on it.
You can also select from preset artboard sizes, such as the popular page sizes letter here
Illustrator CS6
in States and A4 in Europe and elsewhere.
I'll go ahead and select A4 for now.
You also have numerical control over the size and location of your artboard.
Let's say, I want to go ahead and switch mine back to 6x8 inches.
I would go ahead and highlight Width value, and you can do that, by the way just by clicking
on the letter next to it.
So I'll click on the W, and I'll change it to 6 in, and then press the tab key, and I'll
change the Height value which is now active to 8 in order to reset the size of that page.
Notice however, that Illustrator went ahead and resized the artboard with respect to its
center, and that's because the center reference point is selected up here in the Options bar.
If I want to position the artboard with respect to its upper left corner, I go ahead and click
on the upper left point inside of that reference matrix, and now I'll change the X value to 0,
and then I'll tab to the Y value and change it to 0 as well, and that go's ahead and restores
the original location of the page. In order to accept the work just press the Escape key
in order to return to the Black Arrow tool.
Illustrator CS6 Tutorial Video,
I have gone ahead and restored the saved version of 8-page newsletter.ai found inside the 02_artboards folder.Now the first thing I would like you to do, just to make sure that you and I are on the same page, is to go up to the View menu, and make sure that the Smart Guides command is turned on.
If you see a check mark everything's good, if not go ahead and choose the command, you also have the keyboard shortcut of Ctrl+U and Command+U on a Mac.
What Smart Guides do is they allow you to align objects inside of your illustrations as well as artboards on the fly.
Next step, of course, is to switch to Artboard tool, you can get by pressing Shift+O, or you can just click on it here inside the toolbox.
But before I do that, I want you to notice something.
At this point, you can see that page 1 is active because it has a black outline, whereas page 2 or Artboard 2 if you prefer is not selected nor or any of the others, because they have gray outlines.
If you click on let's say Artboard 4, you can see that it gets the black outline because
it's now active and the others are inactive.
You'll also see a number 4 down here in the bottom left corner of the window.
Illustrator goes ahead and numbers Artboards automatically, in the order you create them.
You can override that however that I will show you in a later movie.
Now I will go ahead and switch to the Artboard tool and notice that Artboard 4 is highlighted.
So I just want you to see that artboard that's selected in a standard mode also become selected here inside Artboard mode.
I am going to go ahead and switch back to Artboard 1 by clicking on it and notice that
you have these handles that are surrounding the Artboard.
If you drag one of the handles then you will resize Artboard on the fly and see those green lines, those are the Smart Guides.
So I have got one Smart Guide on the far right side of artboard and another down there at
the bottom that's showing me that I have a center intersection.
So I know that I'm exactly aligned to the right side of pages 2 and 6 as well as the
Illustrator CS6 Tutorial Video,
center of the bottom row of artboards.Now, I am going to drag this bottom handle down until I get alignment with the bottom
of those artboards, and I now have this large artboard that includes 1, 2, 5, and 6 and
has independent artboards inside of it for 2, 5, and 6, which can be a very useful way
to work if you want to have one larger artboard that includes all the artwork inside of a
document, for example, as well as independent artboards for each item.
It's a great way to organize and control the output of your artboard.
You also have some options that are available to you up here in the Options bar.
Notice that I have these orientation icon, so I can switch from Portrait to Landscape
just by clicking on it.
You can also select from preset artboard sizes, such as the popular page sizes letter here
I'll go ahead and select A4 for now.
You also have numerical control over the size and location of your artboard.
Let's say, I want to go ahead and switch mine back to 6x8 inches.
I would go ahead and highlight Width value, and you can do that, by the way just by clicking
on the letter next to it.
So I'll click on the W, and I'll change it to 6 in, and then press the tab key, and I'll
change the Height value which is now active to 8 in order to reset the size of that page.
Notice however, that Illustrator went ahead and resized the artboard with respect to its
center, and that's because the center reference point is selected up here in the Options bar.
If I want to position the artboard with respect to its upper left corner, I go ahead and click
on the upper left point inside of that reference matrix, and now I'll change the X value to 0,
and then I'll tab to the Y value and change it to 0 as well, and that go's ahead and restores
the original location of the page. In order to accept the work just press the Escape key
in order to return to the Black Arrow tool.
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