Pen Pressure in Adobe Illustrator for MacOS
In This Article:
Enabling Pen Pressure
Pen Pressure in Catalina
Pen Pressure in Mojave
Enabling Pen Pressure in Adobe Illustrator
In newer versions of Adobe Illustrator, pressure support can only be enabled in macOS when a Wacom driver is present and Adobe Illustrator 2020 is installed on your Mac. You can install the driver and Illustrator 2020 app by following the steps below:
1
Visit the Wacom drivers website to find and download the latest drivers:
http://www.wacom.com/en-us/support/product-support/drivers
2
Since Adobe Illustrator 2020 is not available to download through the Creative Cloud, you will need to request it from Adobe Support with an active Creative Cloud subscription and let Adobe Support know you need to enable pressure sensitivity in Illustrator for your tablet. You can reach Adobe Support through the chat button at:
https://helpx.adobe.com/support.html
3
Once Illustrator 2020 is installed, Open Illustrator and there should be a prompt to enable control of "TabletDriver". Select OK to complete the setup, then you can close Illustrator 2020 and launch the current version of Illustrator with access to pressure settings.
Note:
You will have to keep Illustrator 2020 installed on your computer in order to continue to use Pressure and other tablet controls on newer versions of Illustrator.
4
Manually adjust your brush option settings in the latest Illustrator from "fixed" to "pressure," and set your desired variations to the stroke.
Note: You do not need a Wacom tablet to install the driver. This driver only needs to be installed for non-Wacom tablets, a solution suggested by Adobe for their users.
Pen Pressure in Catalina
If you downloaded a Wacom driver and have installed Adobe Illustrator 2020 but pen pressure in Adobe Illustrator remains greyed out, here are some things to check for if you are using macOS Catalina:
1
Enable com.wacom.IOManager in System Preferences. Go to System Preferences, then Security & Privacy, and in the Privacy tab, scroll down to Accessibility. This may still be disabled despite installing the driver and agreeing to the prompt pop-up messages for permissions.
2
Restart your Mac after enabling this permission. Open Illustrator and there should be a prompt to enable "TabletDriver".
3
Go back to the Privacy tab in Security & Privacy in System Preferences.
Scroll down to Automation and enable "TabletDriver" for Adobe Illustrator.
4
If pressure is still showing as greyed out in Illustrator's brush settings, close Illustrator and then open your
Applications folder. From there, go to
Wacom tablet folder and open
Wacom Desktop Center App. Opening that should prompt an agreement. Once this is enabled, quit the app and open Illustrator again to see if the pressure option is enabled.
If there still isn't a change, you can also try opening the Wacom Display setting app, then quit it.
5
Restart your Mac again. You should now be able to enable pen pressure in Adobe Illustrator: manually adjust your brush option settings in Illustrator from "fixed" to "pressure," and set your desired variations to the stroke.
Pen Pressure in Mojave
If you are using Astropad with Illustrator while running macOS Mojave (10.14), you will need to enable Automation for Illustrator.
During Illustrator's startup, you should receive an initial prompt to access System Preferences after a Wacom driver has been installed on your Mac.
This permission only appears when a Wacom Driver is installed. When these permissions are denied, pen input and pressure sensitivity will be disabled.
If you never received a prompt or accidentally selected “Don’t Allow,” you can still manually enable this permission:
1
Open your Mac’s System Preferences
2
Select “Security & Privacy”
3
Choose the “Privacy” tab and on the left, scroll down to “Automation”
4
Under Adobe Illustrator, make sure to enable “WacomTabletDriver”
This permission only appears when a Wacom Driver is installed. When these permissions are denied, pen input and pressure sensitivity will be disabled.