Templates let you create new documents that share common settings and design elements. For example, if you need to design a series of business cards with a similar look and feel, you can create a template with the desired artboard size, view settings (such as guides), and print options. The template can also contain symbols for common design elements (such as logos) and specific sets of color swatches, brushes, and graphic styles.

Illustrator comes with a variety of templates, including templates for letterhead, business cards, envelopes, brochures, labels, certificates, postcards, greeting cards, and websites.

When a template is selected via the New From Template command, Illustrator creates a new document with identical content and document settings as the template, but leaves the original template file untouched.