Adobe Illustrator 9.0 expands your
creative freedom and enhances your
productivity with its new Web graphics
tools, versatile transparency
capabilities, powerful object and layer
effects, and other innovative features.
Now you can use these fast, flexible
tools to transform your creative ideas
into sophisticated graphics for use on
the Web, in print, or in dynamic media
projects.
Overview
Getting Started
Tools and palettes
If you've worked with other Adobe
applications, the Adobe
Illustrator work area will look
familiar, with the command menus
at the top of the screen, the
artwork window, the tool box, and
the floating palettes. The
Illustrator tool box contains tools
for selecting, drawing, painting,
and editing your artwork. The
floating palettes contain additional
features that help you monitor,
modify, and enhance your
artwork. You can hide and
rearrange the tool box and
palettes to organize your work
area as needed.
The artwork window
You view, create, and edit your
artwork inside the artwork
window. The artwork window
contains boundary lines that help
you lay out your artwork in
relation to the printable and
nonprintable areas of your page.
Drawing
Basic paths and shapes
Creating a path in Illustrator can
be as simple as selecting the
Pencil tool and drawing in the
artwork window. In addition to
freeform paths, you can create
round and sharp-cornered
rectangles, ellipses, polygons,
spirals, and stars using preset
shape tools. You can build many
types of graphic objects by
starting with basic shapes and
paths and then modifying or
combining them.
The pen tool
The pen tool lets you draw
straight lines and flowing curves.
Although it is less intuitive to use
than the pencil tool, the pen tool
offers you the advantage of
creating streamlined paths that
can be controlled and reshaped
with great precision. With a little
practice, you'll be able to draw
combinations of straight and
curved segments to create
flexible, smoothly shaped
illustrations.
Editing
Selecting objects
Before your edits can take effect,
you must first select the object to
be modified. Any edits you make
affect only the objects that are
currently selected. Illustrator
provides several tools for
selecting objects or parts of
objects.
Applying changes
Once you have selected an object
or set of objects, you can begin
making edits. Edits can range from
the basic moving and duplicating
of objects to more intricate
modifications of shapes. Because
Illustrator defines objects
mathematically as vector
graphics, you can edit your
artwork repeatedly without losing
any quality of detail. Vector
objects always retain their
smooth, crisp outlines, regardless
of how they are scaled or
modified.
Grouping objects
By gathering several objects
together in a group, you can
apply simultaneous edits to all the
objects while preserving their
relative positions. For example,
you can group the individual
elements of a flower illustration so
that you can move and scale the
flower as a single unit. You can
also nest smaller groups inside
larger groups to organize different
levels of your artwork.
Color
Stylized strokes
The Paintbrush tool lets you paint
colored strokes using a variety of
artistic brush styles. Paintbrush
strokes can be edited in the same
manner as paths and other
artwork objects. In addition to
drawing new strokes with the
paintbrush tool, you can decorate
existing paths with a desired
brush style.
Filling and stroking objects
Painting an object involves two
parts. You apply a fill color to the
object's interior and a stroke color
to its border. The fill and stroke
colors are chosen and edited
independently.
Advanced fills and strokes
Illustrator gives you more
advanced fill and stroke options
such as patterns, gradients, and
the ability to add multiple fills and
strokes to a single object. In
addition, you can apply versatile
levels of transparency to the
colors of objects.
Type
The type tool
You first select a type tool and
set an insertion point for the type
in your artwork. Then you enter
the desired type using the
keyboard.
Editing type
You use palette controls to
specify traditional typesetting
properties such as the font, size,
kerning, leading, and tracking.
Applying graphic edits
You can use the Illustrator editing
tools to move, copy, rotate, and
graphically modify objects. You
can also edit the fill, stroke and
transparency of objects.
Enhanced productivity
Layers
The Layers palette lets you
organize objects in your artwork
on separate layers, which can be
repositioned, restacked, and
edited individually.
Swatches
The Swatches palette lets you
add and edit new color and
pattern swatches to create a
custom swatch set stored with
your artwork file when you save
it. Whenever you copy an object
from one document to another,
any swatches associated with the
object are added to the
destination documents
Swatches palette.
Actions
The Actions palette lets you
record and save sets of program
tasks that can be applied
automatically to your artwork as
batch processes.
Styles
The Styles palette lets you apply
sets of appearance attributes,
called graphic styles, to graphic
and type objects in your artwork.
Because styles are linked
nondestructively to their objects,
you can continue to reshape,
resize, transform, and retype the
objects with the assurance that
the styles will update with your
edits.
Features
Super vector and raster Web
graphics
Flash and SVG output
With Adobe Illustrator 9.0,
you can preserve your artwork in
vector form when exporting it for
the Web. Illustrator 9.0 provides
excellent support for exporting
files to Flash (SWF) format, as
well as to the new Scalable
Vector Graphics (SVG) standard.
Both Web vector formats maintain
high-quality artwork and fonts,
while producing smaller file sizes
and faster download times than
bitmap formats. Flash is widely
used to design vector-based Web
pages and Web animations; when
exporting graphics to this format,
you have the option of exporting
the entire graphic to a single SWF
file; exporting each layer to a
separate frame in a single SWF
file; or exporting each layer to a
separate SWF file.
SVG is an emerging, completely
open standard that was
developed by the World Wide Web
Consortium (W3C) and numerous
industry players, including Adobe
Systems, IBM, Netscape, Sun,
Corel, Hewlett-Packard, and
others. The SVG standard
provides all the benefits of the
Flash format, plus support for the
following features: Type 1 and
TrueType fonts, extensible markup
language (XML), Cascading Style
Sheets (CSS), interactive actions,
and dynamic HTML animation.
When preparing SVG output, you
can assign scripted events to
objects using the SVG
Interactivity palette, and then
export that information with the
file. Illustrator also ships with the
SVG Viewer plug-in, which works
with different browsers to play
back SVG graphics and Web
pages.
Pixel Preview
Because the vector artwork that
you create in Adobe Illustrator
will be rasterized upon output to
the Web, it's useful to monitor
your work in terms of pixels.
Illustrator 9.0 lets you specify
pixels as a global measurement
unit for sizing, editing, and laying
out your artwork. You can also
preview your vector objects as
they will appear when rasterized
in a Web browser. Working in Pixel
Preview mode guarantees that
your objects will snap to the
nearest pixel edge in order to
minimize anti-aliasing. You can
draw and edit artwork in this
mode.
Instant drop shadows and glows,
and live shapes
New commands under the Effect
menu let you convert type and
graphic objects to editable
rectangular or elliptical shapes,
which can be especially useful for
creating Web buttons. These
shapes can contain fully editable
type objects and appearances;
when you modify or transform a
shape, its contents update
automatically.
The Stylize commands under the
Effect menu let you apply
appearances such as drop
shadows and glows directly to
type and graphic objects while
retaining full vector editability of
the objects.
Release to Layers command
The new Release to Layers
command lets you instantly
distribute all of the objects on a
layer onto separate, individual
layers. You can use this feature
to prepare files for further Web
animation work in other
applications that support layers.
For example, you can prepare
different frames of an animation
by first applying blend options to
objects or using the scatter brush
to paint repeated copies of an
object along a path. You can then
release each object in the blend
or scattered path to a separate
layer, and export the file as a
Flash (SWF) file or to Adobe
Photoshop to set up the
animation.
By pressing Shift as you choose
the Release to Layers command,
you can distribute objects onto
separate layers in a cumulative
sequence. For example, you can
create a layer containing the first
object, a layer containing the first
and second objects, a layer
containing the first, second, and
third objects, and so on. This
procedure is especially useful for
building animation sequences.
Creative freedom
Unlimited transparency
capabilities
The new Transparency palette In
Adobe Illustrator 9.0 lets you
apply transparency to any graphic
object, bitmap image, or type
character in your artwork so that
underlying objects are partially or
fully revealed. You can vary the
transparency settings for every
character, word, or paragraph in a
text block, and even create
cumulative effects by applying
individual settings to characters
and then applying an overall
setting to an entire text block.
Objects and text remain fully
editable with transparency
applied.
You also have the option of
limiting transparency to a layer, to
a group of objects, or to an
object's stroke or fill to achieve
different creative results. To
apply transparency to multiple
objects, simply Shift-click to
select the objects and then set
the transparency. To apply
transparency to a layer, first
target the layer in the Layers
palette and then set the
transparency. The transparency
setting then affects the entire
layer as a single object -- any
graphics on the layer, and any
you add later on, immediately
assume the transparency of the
layer.
Opacity and Layer mask
Two new masking features --
Opacity masks and Layer Clipping
masks -- let you selectively hide
and reveal areas of your artwork
through custom shapes. Using the
Transparency palette, you can
define any object as an opacity
mask, so that artwork attached to
the mask takes on modified
transparency. The grayscale
equivalents of the colors in the
mask correspond to different
levels of mask transparency. By
editing the shape, placement, and
fill of the mask, you can achieve
sophisticated effects such as
variable transparency across an
object.
Clipping masks, which are defined
through the Layers palette, let
you reveal a set of underlying
objects through a clipping shape.
Feathering
The Feather command under the
Effect > Stylize menu softens the
transition between foreground and
background objects. As with other
effects, the feathering effect can
be applied nondestructively to
vector objects and type.
Overprint preview
With Adobe Illustrator 9.0,
you can preview your overprint
settings to proof trapping and
spot-color effects before you go
to press. You can, for example,
preview on-screen how a
spot-color object will overprint
other objects.
Unparalleled productivity
Effects
Use the many commands under
the new Effect menu in Adobe
Illustrator 9.0 to apply
nondestructive visual effects to
graphic objects, bitmap images,
and type in your artwork. These
effects preserve the full editability
of the objects to which they are
applied; you can continue to
reshape, resize, transform, and
retype the objects with the
assurance that the effects will
update with your edits. You can
even remove an effect from an
object without having to
re-create the object from
scratch.
Graphic styles
The new Styles palette lets you
create and save a set of
appearance attributes, called a
style, so that the style can be
applied instantly to any number
of graphic objects and type.
Because styles are linked
nondestructively to their
objects, you can continue to
reshape, resize, transform, and
retype the objects with the
assurance that the styles will
update with your edits. A style
can consist of a combination of
attributes, including multiple fill
and stroke colors, gradients,
patterns, effects, filters,
transparency, blending modes,
and transformations. To edit an
existing style, use the new
Appearance palette to view the
contents of the style, and then
modify, reorder, add, or delete
the attributes as needed.
Enhanced layer controls
The Layers palette provides a
number of display and ordering
enhancements that can help you
organize, rearrange, and monitor
your artwork elements with
improved precision and efficiency.
Now you can display an expanded
hierarchy of elements directly in
the Layers palette with thumbnail
previews, starting with top-level
layers, then groups nested inside
the layers, and finally objects
nested inside the groups. You can
also nest layers inside other
layers, and reorder any element
by dragging it up or down in the
Layers palette. Other
enhancements include the Release
to Layers command for
automatically generating separate
layers, clipping masks for shaping
the display of artwork, and the
ability to target elements in the
Layers palette as recipients of
style and appearance attributes.
Enhanced layer controls
Native support for Adobe PDF
The Adobe Illustrator 9.0 file
format is now Adobe Portable
Document Format (PDF) at its
core, making it easier to prepare
these compact files for handoff.
This transition in file formats is
transparent because the
Illustrator file extension is still .ai,
and Illustrator can still open and
save previous versions of its files
(back to version 1.0). However,
you can now roundtrip PDF files
that you've saved from Illustrator
without losing any file features,
such as fonts, patterns, or
vertical text blocks. Plus, you
have a complete set of
compression, font embedding,
color management, security, and
other settings available for quickly
preparing PDF files for high-end
output. Future versions of Adobe
Acrobat Reader will be able to
open, view, and print native
Illustrator files because they are
PDF-based.
Tight integration
Integration with Adobe's print
publishing programs
The many new and enhanced
features of Adobe Illustrator
9.0 make it an even more useful
and integrated tool in the desktop
print-publishing workflow. To
begin with, the look and feel of
the command menus, toolbox,
palettes, and keyboard shortcuts
reflect the standard user interface
common to many Adobe programs.
Illustrator also provides superior
support for a number of
exportable features, such as
layers, transparency, blending
modes, editable text, and filters.
Illustrator 9.0 offers superb
integration with Adobe
Photoshop. When opening a
Photoshop file in Illustrator, you
can preserve masks, blending
modes, and transparency, and
convert layers to separate
Illustrator objects. When
exporting an Illustrator file to
Photoshop format, you can
preserve layers, opacity masks,
transparency, blending modes,
and editable type.
Integration with Adobe's Web
design programs
The new and improved Web
workflow of Adobe Illustrator
9.0 makes it easier than ever to
export files to other Adobe Web
design programs such as GoLive
5.0 and LiveMotion. You can
place native Illustrator graphics
directly in GoLive 5.0 files for
efficient one-step optimization to
Web formats such as GIF, JPEG,
PNG, SWF, and SVG. You can also
bring Illustrator artwork into
LiveMotion for further animation,
interactivity, and sound
enhancements.
Expanded file format support
Adobe Illustrator 9.0 can open
or place files saved in the
following formats: Illustrator (any
version), EPS, Adobe PDF (one
page at a time), Adobe
Photoshop (versions 2.5 and
later), Macromedia FreeHand
(versions 5.0, 5.5, 7.0, and 8.0),
CorelDRAW (versions 5.0 through
8.0), Amiga IFF, BMP, CGM, DWG,
DXF, EMF/WMF, GIF, JPEG, PNG,
Kodak Photo CD, PICT, PCX, PXR,
TGA, and TIFF.
Illustrator 9.0 can save or export
files in the following
formats: Illustrator, EPS, PDF,
Flash (SWF), SVG, GIF, JPEG,
PNG, Photoshop (including layers),
Amiga IFF, BMP, CGM (version 1),
EMF/WMF, DWG, DXF, PICT, PCX,
PXR, TGA, and TIFF.
Illustrator 9.0 can save or export
files in the following
formats: Illustrator, EPS, PDF,
Flash (SWF), SVG, GIF, JPEG,
PNG, Photoshop (including layers),
Amiga IFF, BMP, CGM (version 1),
EMF/WMF, DWG, DXF, PICT, PCX,
PXR, TGA, and TIFF.