You're looking for the "New Page" button, right? It isn't there. Honestly, if you’re coming from Microsoft Word or even Adobe InDesign, Adobe Illustrator feels like a prank. There are no "pages." Instead, we have artboards.
Think of it like this: a page is a rigid sheet in a book, but an artboard is a literal piece of paper taped to a massive drafting table. You can move the paper. You can resize it. You can even overlap two pieces of paper if you’re feeling chaotic. Learning how to add a page in illustrator really just means mastering the Artboard Tool (Shift+O). Once you get that, the "infinite canvas" vibe of Illustrator starts making a lot more sense.
The Quick Way to Add an Artboard
Most people just need one more space to draw. Easy. Look at your toolbar on the left. See that icon that looks like a crop tool with a little plus sign? That’s your Artboard Tool. Click it. Or just hit Shift+O.
Now, look at the top bar. You’ll see a little "New Artboard" icon that looks like a sheet of paper with a folded corner. Click that. Boom. A new page appears. It usually mimics the size of your last active artboard, which is usually what you want anyway.
But wait. There's a faster way if you’re trying to be precise. With the Artboard Tool active, you can actually just click and drag anywhere in the gray "pasteboard" area. You’re literally drawing a new page into existence. If you need it to be exactly 1080x1080 for an Instagram post, you can manually type those dimensions into the "W" and "H" boxes in the Properties panel while that new artboard is selected.
Why the Artboards Panel is Better
If you're working on a 50-page brand guide, clicking and dragging is a nightmare. Go to Window > Artboards. This panel is your best friend. It looks like the Layers panel, but it controls your physical pages.
Inside this panel, there's a "plus" icon at the bottom. Every time you click it, Illustrator adds a new artboard to the right of your current one. It keeps them all lined up in a neat row, which keeps your file from looking like a total mess. You can also double-click the name (like "Artboard 1") to rename it. Trust me, "Front_Cover" is a lot easier to find later than "Artboard 56."
Mastering the "Duplicate" Trick
Sometimes you don't just want a blank page. You want a copy of the page you just spent three hours designing so you can try a different color scheme.
Here is the secret: Select the Artboard Tool (Shift+O). Hold down the Alt key (Windows) or Option key (Mac). Now, click on your artboard and drag it to the side.
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You just cloned the page.
Check the top Control bar, though. There is a tiny button that says "Move/Copy Artwork with Artboard." If that isn't highlighted, you'll just move a blank white square and leave all your beautiful illustrations floating in the void. Make sure it's turned on before you drag. This is the single most common "why isn't this working" moment for my students.
Rearranging Your Messy Canvas
So you’ve been adding pages left and right. Now your workspace looks like a crime scene. Documents are overlapping, and there's a three-inch gap between page one and page two.
Don't manually move them. That's a waste of time.
Go back to that Artboards panel (Window > Artboards). Click the tiny menu icon (the "hamburger" stack) in the top right corner. Select Rearrange All Artboards. A window pops up asking how many columns you want and how much spacing should be between them. Type "20px" for spacing, choose the layout that flows left-to-right, and hit OK. Illustrator will snap everything into a perfect grid instantly. It’s incredibly satisfying to watch.
Different Sizes in One File? Yes.
One of the coolest things about Illustrator—and something that confuses the heck out of InDesign users—is that every "page" can be a different size.
Imagine you are designing a brand identity. You need a business card, a letterhead, and a billboard.
- Hit Shift+O.
- Draw a small rectangle for the card.
- Draw a big rectangle for the letterhead.
- Draw a massive one for the billboard.
You can manage all of these in one single .AI file. When you go to File > Export > Export for Screens, Illustrator treats each artboard as a separate file. You can export the business card as a PDF and the billboard as a TIFF at the exact same time.
The Limits of "Pages" in Illustrator
We have to talk about the "Canvas Limit." For years, Illustrator had a maximum canvas size of about 227 inches. If you tried to add too many pages or make them too big, you'd hit a wall.
Adobe recently updated this for "Large Scale Canvas," but there are still quirks. If you are doing a 200-page book, stop. Seriously. Illustrator will lag. It will crash. It will make your life miserable. For high page counts, InDesign is the tool. Illustrator is for "art," InDesign is for "pages." Know the difference before you're 80 artboards deep and the file takes ten minutes to save.
Common Pitfalls to Avoid
I see people make the same mistakes constantly. First: overlapping artboards. If Artboard 2 slightly overlaps Artboard 1, and you export "Artboard 1," you might see a tiny sliver of Artboard 2’s artwork on the edge of your file. Keep your spacing clean.
Second: the "Bleed" confusion. If you're sending this to a professional printer, adding a page doesn't automatically add a bleed. You need to go to File > Document Setup to ensure your red bleed line is visible around all your artboards. Adding a page just adds the "trim" size.
Third: Artboard vs. Layer. They aren't the same. You can have 10 artboards and only 1 layer. This means if you "hide" Layer 1, every single page in your document becomes blank. It’s usually better to organize layers by content (e.g., Text, Background, Images) rather than by page number.
Actionable Next Steps for Your Project
To get your document organized right now, follow these specific steps:
- Audit your current layout: Press Shift+O and see if any of your artboards are accidentally overlapping. If they are, use the Rearrange All Artboards function in the Artboards panel to give them some breathing room.
- Name your pages: Open the Artboards panel and rename "Artboard 1" to something descriptive like "Instagram_Post_V1." This makes the export process much faster because Illustrator uses those names for the filenames.
- Check your export settings: When you're ready to share your work, use File > Export > Export for Screens. This allows you to select exactly which pages (artboards) you want to turn into JPEGs or PDFs without having to save the whole document every time.
- Set up your Bleeds: If you're printing, go to Document Setup and add a 0.125-inch (3mm) bleed. This ensures that when you add new pages, they all have the necessary space for professional trimming.
Illustrator doesn't have to be frustrating. Stop thinking about "adding pages" like it's a book and start thinking about it like you're laying out different canvases on a giant studio floor. Once that mental shift happens, the Artboard tool becomes the most powerful part of your workflow.