By Year [2021] — Adobe Illustrator Versions

The Windows Arrival. Adobe finally ported Illustrator to Windows (3.1). To match the boring corporate aesthetic of early Windows, the UI became gray (losing the classic Mac black-and-white checkerboard).

Introduced the 3D extrusion tool and OpenType font support.

Bundled print and web design tools into a single, cohesive ecosystem. 2005: Adobe Illustrator CS2 (Version 12)

Illustrator for iPad launched concurrently, introducing a mobile vector ecosystem. 2021: Adobe Illustrator 2022 (Version 26) Key Launch: October 2021. adobe illustrator versions by year

Illustrator CS2 (v12) – Added Live Trace (converting raster images to vectors) and Live Paint.

The Final Perpetual License. This was the last version you could buy outright (without a subscription). It remains a favorite among freelancers who hate monthly fees.

– Released for Mac OS on March 19, 1987, introducing vector graphic editing to the public. The Windows Arrival

The Original. Released exclusively for the Apple Macintosh in January 1987, version 1.0 was a revolutionary leap. It was one of the first applications to bring WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) interface design using Adobe’s proprietary PostScript language.

Not named for the year of release in a standard sense, this was effectively version 2.0. It introduced (the precursor to today’s Graphic Styles) and the ability to work with multiple artboards conceptually, though not as we know them today. It was also the first version to see significant adoption by professional illustrators leaving traditional media.

A quality-of-life masterpiece. CS2 introduced the (turning raster images into editable vectors with incredible control) and Live Paint (filling overlapping paths like a coloring book without merging them). It also added Vanishing Point -style perspective grids. Many designers consider CS2 the "golden" version—stable, fast, and feature-complete. Introduced the 3D extrusion tool and OpenType font support

Intertwine tool and seamless copy-paste workflows with InDesign.

The first decade was defined by establishing core vector tools and sporadic platform support. The initial version, codenamed "Picasso," focused on automating manual tasks for graphic designers using lines and Bézier curves.

Version 9.0 (Matisse) – A major leap that introduced transparency, drop shadows, and native PDF support.