Adobe Illustrator Versions By Year – Safe

Adobe Illustrator was originally developed by Adobe Inc. and released in 1987. It began as a companion product to Adobe Photoshop, focusing on vector graphics (lines and curves) rather than raster images (pixels). Over 35+ years, it has evolved from a basic path-editing tool into a complex, AI-driven design ecosystem used globally for logo design, typography, and illustration.

The first version of Adobe Illustrator, released in 1987, was a groundbreaking software that introduced the world to vector graphics. Developed for the Apple Macintosh, Illustrator 1.0 allowed users to create and edit vector-based graphics, a significant departure from traditional raster graphics.

Basic vector tools ported over from the Mac version, though it suffered from a clunky Windows interface. 1990: Adobe Illustrator 3.0 Platform: Macintosh, Unix

Introduced Freeform Gradients, allowing photorealistic color blending, and Global Edit to modify identical objects simultaneously. 2019: Adobe Illustrator 2020 (Version 24) adobe illustrator versions by year

The Appearance Palette, asset saving for the web (GIF, JPEG), and native SVG export support. 2001: Adobe Illustrator 10 Key Launch: 2001. Platform: Mac and Windows.

Focused on background processing and error prevention.

Introduced Live Trace (for turning raster images into vectors) and Live Paint (for effortless color filling). 2007: Adobe Illustrator CS3 (Version 13) Adobe Illustrator was originally developed by Adobe Inc

The final version released exclusively for the classic Mac OS before Adobe unified the cross-platform experience.

Standardized the keyboard shortcuts used across the entire design industry. 1998: Adobe Illustrator 8.0

Often considered the version that "beat" competitor Aldus FreeHand, it introduced color support and the Auto Trace tool. The Expansion Era: Cross-Platform Growth (1989–2001) Over 35+ years, it has evolved from a

marked Adobe's first major attempt to expand beyond Apple and bring the software to the Windows platform. Unfortunately, version 2.0 for Windows was a commercial flop. This was partly due to the platform's differences and a significant gap in features compared to its Mac sibling.

Complete interface unification between the Mac and Windows versions.

Solved chronic system crashes when handling massive, anchor-heavy vector patterns.