How to duplicate an artboard in Illustrator

Artboards are a great way to manage multiple designs or multiple iterations of the same design within a single Illustrator project. Duplicating an artboard will allow you to copy the artboard as well as all the text layers and objects it contains, making it easy to experiment with multiple design variations.

Here are two possible methods to duplicate an artboard in Adobe Illustrator.

The first method will allow you to duplicate both the artboard and the graphics, text and other content within the artboard.

The second method will duplicate only the worktable.

Here’s how to do it:

Method 1:

1. Open your Illustrator project file
2. In the left toolbar, select the Workbench tool (Shift-O).
3. While holding down the Option (Alt) key, click on the artboard and drag and drop to duplicate it.

Method 2:

1. Select the artboard you want to duplicate in the artboards panel (Windows > Artboards), and click the new artboard icon at the bottom of the panel. This method will not duplicate the contents of the worktable, only the worktable.

Alternative methods and shortcuts:

There are some additional shortcuts you can use to speed up the duplication process. As you become more familiar with using Illustrator these shortcuts will become second nature to you, you just have to keep practicing and familiarizing yourself with the keys and tools.

A shortcut is the classic copy and paste method. This method varies depending on whether you are using a Mac or a PC.

For Mac:

1. Select the Artboard you want to duplicate (Shift + O)
2. Click Command + C to copy
3. Click Command + V to paste
4. Your workbench and all the objects it contains will be duplicated.

For PC:

1. Select the Artboard you want to duplicate (Shift + O)
2. Click on Ctrl + C to copy
3. Click Ctrl + V to paste
4. Your workbench and all the objects on it will be duplicated.

As you can see in the image above, when you use the copy and paste shortcut, any object or image you have will appear in the duplicate. This is a very easy and convenient way to duplicate your Artboard quickly.

You can paste your Artboard into a separate document as well, you don’t need to copy it into the same document if you don’t want to.

1. Copy the Artboard you want to duplicate as shown above
2. Switch to the new document into which you want to paste the Artboard
3. Command + V (Mac) or Ctrl + V (PC) to paste the Artboard into the new document

Duplicate multiple Artboards:

If you are working on a project with many artboards and want to duplicate several artboards at once, this method may be best for you:

1. Go to the Artboards panel (Windows > Artboards)
2. Highlight all the artboards you want to duplicate by holding down the Shift key and clicking.
3. Click on the button with three horizontal lines at the top right of the panel.
4. From there, click on Duplicate Workbench and all selected workbenches will be duplicated.

Appoint work tables:

When you duplicate your artboard using this or other methods, most of the time the name will not change or will only have the word «copy» attached to the name of the original artboard. It is recommended that you change the names of your work tables in order to keep track of your respective projects.

Be sure to name them so that you can easily distinguish what is on that workbench. A central color or table theme or text title are good naming conventions. Whatever works best for you and your team for identification.

How to name a new work table:

1. Select your new work table (Shift + O)
2. In the Properties Pane, you can enter the name you want as shown above

Using the workbench panel:

The artboards panel (Windows > Artboards) is a great tool not only to duplicate artboards, but to manage all artboards in one place.

As your projects grow and you accumulate several artboards, be sure to use the artboards panel to manage them all. From the panel, you can rename, select, delete or copy all artboards and their contents.