The Artboard

You can shift one drawing area over another (1).

When you start to scroll the drawing areas, a green vertical and / or horizontal line (2) appears, which means that the drawing area is properly aligned with the adjacent drawing area.

The green lines are called “Smart Guides”. You can enable or disable them, by clicking on the “View” button in the menu bar and clicking on “Smart Guides” in the drop-down menu.

To delete a drawing area you have several options.
1. You click the trash icon in the options bar.
2. You click the Delete button on your keyboard.
3. You click the x icon in the upper right corner of the drawing paper.
Whatever you do, you always select the artboard you want to delete.

 

Click and select any tool in the tool bar (3) to exit the “Artboard Area”.

 

One more thing.

• Each “artboard” area has a number, you see that are in the top left corner of each “artboard” area.
  This number is given by Illustrator and is not changed when you use different drawing sheets instead of swaps. An artboard sheet still retains its number.
• If you accidentally deleted a drawing area, click the shortcut Ctrl Z on your keyboard to return back.
• If you have superposed two artboards and the bottom one is selected, you can not select the top one by clicking it. To do so, hold the Alt key on your keyboard while you click on that.

 

You can also create a drawing area into multiple artboards.

For example:
You have a document with three drawings. If you want to print each of these drawings on its own page or you wish each of the drawings in its own PDF file, does not matter, in both cases you can make multiple arboards from the drawing area.

How do you do that?

The first thing you do is to select the drawing area mode. You have seen how to do that in the previous lesson. But for those who have forgotten it, click the “Artborad” button (1) in the toolbar.

Then click and drag the blocks to the horizontal and vertical edge up and left (2).

 

This gives us a drawing sheet with an object, in this case, the circle (3).

 

Then we have to copy the drawing area.

Important!
Note that the “Move / Copy Artwork with Artboard” (1) in the options bar is NOT selected, otherwise you will not only copy the drawing area, but also the object in the drawing area, in this case the circle.

Then click and drag, with the Alt key on your keyboard pressed, the drawing area to where you want to copy (2).

And repeat this for the third drawing area.

This gives the result that each illustration now has its own drawing area (3).

And finally we will center different artwork in its own drawing area.

For this, we will leave the “Artboard Area” mode.
How do you do that, I already told you but if you have forgotten, by clicking any tool in the tool bar.

Then select the first illustration in the first drawing field (1), that is the circle.

Click the “Align to selection” button (2) in the options bar.

And choose “Align to Artboard” (3) in the drop-down menu.

This gives a align menu (4) back into the options bar where you click the “Horizontal Align Center” (5) and the “Vertical Align Center” (6).

Repeat this for the other illustrations.

This will place all our illustrations neatly in the middle of their drawing area.

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