0

Ctrl Alt N in Illustrator bypasses the New Document dialog and immediately creates a new document for you. Is there any way to set this up to always spawn a specific document (template) when you press that shortcut?

3
  • 1
    Usually the answer is no what you experience is what you get. But you can record an action that does specify the document
    – joojaa
    Nov 11, 2020 at 13:52
  • @joojaa This seemed great in theory but there seemed to be two issues with it. 1. you can't specify a document to be opened with actions, only have the action activate the Open dialog, or am I missing something? 2. You can't bind Ctrl + Alt + N to the action. I ultimately came to the conclusion that the best solution to achive the desired goal was that in my comment on cruciformhawk7's answer below.
    – Henrik
    Nov 12, 2020 at 15:54
  • no i can get it to work what version of illustrator. Yes you can not bind actions to anything other than function keys
    – joojaa
    Nov 12, 2020 at 16:24

1 Answer 1

2

Ctrl + Alt + N creates a new document but duplicates your current document settings.

I guess it would be better to create a new template and Ctrl + N and choose that template, or create a new document with the options you want and Ctrl + Alt + N as much as you want.

2
  • 1
    +1 Yes. The shortcut merely opens a new document based on the last opened document. So, open the document with the document profile you want and then you can repeat the shortcut all you want for that same set up.
    – Scott
    Nov 11, 2020 at 16:01
  • 1
    Thanks all for replies. I'll mark this as the answer. However, I still think this operation is sub-optimal. For Win users, here's one way to have Ctrl+Alt+N always spawn a specific document template. It involves AutoHotkey, which you should use anyway ;). Pardon the crappy formatting (make a new line by the § characters and remove them from your script): #IfWinActive ahk_exe Illustrator.exe ahk_class ahk_class illustrator§ ; Quickly create new document without opening the New Document dialog§ ^!N::§ Run, Drive:\path\to\your template document.ait§ return§ #IfWinActive
    – Henrik
    Nov 12, 2020 at 15:47

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge that you have read and understand our privacy policy and code of conduct.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.