Take control of Adobe Illustrator and create your own Preset Document.
Wouldn’t it be brilliant when starting a new document in Adobe Illustrator it would automatically come with your color pallet, your custom designed symbols, the right color space, the right size document and resolution, and in points, pixels, or inches, whatever you use most? You can have this and more with control over Adobe Illustrator's Preset Documents.
One of my own custom built Preset Document.
Illustrator's print Preset Document choices
What is a Preset Document and what does Illustrator have to offer.
A Preset Document in Illustrator is a document that is set or adjusted beforehand to facilitate use, whether you want to use it for mobile, web, print, or film and video. The choices are limited and often times you end up adding everything you need for your project after you've created a new document and this slows down your workflow. Templates are different and won't be covered in this article.
How to get to your Library folder
Where are the Preset Documents located on your Mac?
It's important to know where your Preset Documents live in order to save new presets or delete older ones that have out lived their usefulness. Preset Documents are located in a folder called New Document Profiles. To get there you need to start with your Library. There are two ways of getting to the Library folder on your Mac.
1. You can open the Finder window and select Go from the menu bar at the top of the screen while holding down the Option key to reveal the Library folder option in the dropdown menu, then select Library. 2. Open the Finder window and select Go to open Go to Folder, type in ~/Library and select Go. When you get to your Library select it and you're 4 steps away from the New Profile Documents folder.
The long journey to your New Document Profiles folder.
Follow the Path
To follow the path to the New Document Profiles folder first select Library go to Application Support > Adobe > Adobe Illustrator > en_us scroll down to New Document Profiles select it, and there the preset Documents live.
If you have more than one version of Adobe Illustrator, you need to find out which version you’re currently using. Open Illustrator, select Illustrator in the search bar and select About Illustrator, when the pop up window shows, look for the little number towards the upper left under the title Adobe Illustrator. I’m using Adobe Illustrator 24.
Find the Adobe Illustrator version number here.
Make it.
Now that we know where we need to save our custom Preset Document, we can start building it. It's okay to try out different options you'd like to see on your Document Preset. If you don't like it after a few trial runs, save your new and improved document and go into New Document Profiles and delete the old one, if you wish.
Plan what you'd want and what you don’t want in your own custom Preset Document. Consider the RGB or CMYK color space, size, resolution, number of art boards, customize your color pallet, symbols, and brushes, you can add and change anything in your document that would speed up your design process. After creating and customizing your new document, you're ready to save it to New Document Profiles.
Drag your New Preset Document from your desktop.
Save it.
With the newest version of Adobe Illustrator cc I’ve found no direct way to save your document to the New Profile Document folder, but it’s not difficult to do once you know where they are kept. When you are finished making all of your changes, go to File> Save As, then name your document. Save your document to your Desktop then close it in Illustrator.
Follow the path to your New Document Profiles folder and open it, and drag your newly built custom Preset Document Illustrator file from your desktop into the New Document Profiles folder. You now have created your own custom Preset Document that is easily accessible from Illustrator.
There it is!