: What does the default 'whiteboard' in illustrator represent? Does this have any significance / mean anything? More specifically, am I allowed to draw outside it or am I limited to drawing within

@Berumen635

That is all useful information.
I'd just like to answer simply, the art board can be thought of as your picture frame. Use it to frame your print or export your image. It's used to set the bounds or edges of your art.

It's usually the first thing you set. When you click new file it lets you set the art board size. If you click the art board tool you can drag it to any size or enter height and width values using any units: inches, mm, cm, points, pixels etc.

When saving for web you can choose to "ignore art board" and everything visible in your file will be included.

Also alignment can be set to art board so things will be centered or aligned in your frame.

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@Caterina889

The "whiteboard" is commonly referred to as the artboard within the application. So, any inner application menu which refers to "Artboard" is indicating this object. In some Adobe educational materials, the "artboard" is actually called the "canvas" (To try and coincide with Photoshop terminology)--- leave it to Adobe to mix up terms and cause confusion.

All Illustrator files have at least one artboard. It is impossible to have an Illustrator file without an artboard.

The size of the artboard is dependent upon either the start up document profile you select:



These profiles contain pre-configured sizes which may or may not be appropriate for your use. They are just common sizes the AI Team feels are most needed/used. You'll notice when you select different Profiles, the width and height fields reflect the new size.

You are free to set the artboard to any size you'd like when opening a new document:



Typically if you alter the the size to a custom size, it will remain set at that size unless you change profiles or change the size yourself.

The artboard represents the "live" area of the file. You can ignore it completely and draw outside of it. There's even the menu item View > Hide Artboards.

However, for Illustrator, in terms of printing, objects have to be on the artboard to be printed correctly in many cases. And in some cases exported and saved. It depends upon your workflow. There are ways to draw anywhere then save the artwork regardless of the artboard size and position. It really all depends upon your end goal.

Most will find using an artboard size that closely matches your needed artwork is generally the most efficient way to work. You can have 10 different pieces of artwork in a single Illustrator file. But having them all on their own artboard makes exporting/saving an easier thing if all 10 have their own underlying artboard.

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@Kaufman565

The default artboard ("whiteboard") is set to 8.5 inches by 11 inches, because that's the standard size of a sheet of paper in the U.S. If you're using settings for a European (maybe Asian as well?) country, I'd imagine the default would be for A4.

The area outside the artboard is called the pasteboard. You can in fact draw (or use any other tools on it) on it, however, any object that is on the pasteboard will not print. So, it's handy to use for art/text/objects you are working on but aren't final, or that are just pieces that you haven't found a use for yet (among many other possible uses).

AI's default settings are that the pasteboard matches the "Interface brightness", so if this is set to dark, the pasteboard will be dark. You have the option to change it to white though, which seems much more intuitive to me. To each his/her own.

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