Create Illustrator document without defined document/canvas size?

Question

Does anyone know if it's possible to create a new document in illustrator that is boundless? And once you have entered all the content you define the size before exporting?

Answer 1

I'd go about this by working with an ignorable artboard, then create an artboard that fits the artwork when the work is done, like this:

• Create a document with an artboard that is either way too big (5779.55mm seems to be the max), or way too small (0.36mm seems to be the minimum), and ignore the artboard when working. If you're working with a tiny virtually invisible artboard, and the grey background bothers you, you can change it to white in Preferences > User Interface.
• When you're finished, select everything (cmd+A). Group everything (cmd+G).
• Click on this group of everything with the Artboards tool. It creates an artboard around the group of exactly the right size. Delete the original artboard from the Artboards panel, and ungroup the group of everything (cmd+shift+G) if desired.

Illustrator is effectively boundless anyway, the artboards are more of a convenience for exporting than a limit or boundary.

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If you don't want the final artboard to exactly surround everything, after creating it you can resize it by either using the artboard tool to change it visually, or, you can select it with the artboards tool then double-click the artboard tool icon in the tools palette, which gives you a window where you can change the size and shape numerically.