Real world Adobe Illustrator 10 Book

Introduction

The Structure of This Book. The Margin Icons. Platform Nuts and Bolts.

I. WELCOME TO ILLUSTRATOR.

1. Meet Illustrator 10.

Adobe: the "Microsoft of Graphics". Where Illustrator Fits In. Close, But Not Kin: Illustrator Versus Photoshop. The Lowdown on Illustrator 10.

2. The Interface.

Getting Illustrator Up and Running. The Illustrator Desktop. Accomodating Your Personal Style.

3. The Artboard.

Preparing a New Illustration. Getting Around in Illustrator.

4. Files and Formats.

Opening Files. Placing and Linking. Saving Your Work to Disk. Why All These Formats?

II. WORKING WITH SHAPES.

5. Creating Lines and Shapes.

Everything You Need to Know About Paths. Doing and Undoing. Creating Simple Shapes. The Flare Tool. Lines, Arcs, Spirals, and Grids. Drawing Free-Form Paths. Pointing Paths. Tracing Templates. Yet One Tool Beats Them All.

6. Exact Points and Precision Curves.

Selecting Like a House on Fire. Deselecting Stuff That You Want to Leave As Is. Dragging Stuff Around. The Great and Powerful Pen Tool. Putting the Pen Tool to Work. Smoothing, Erasing, Reshaping. And Simplifying (aka Fixing Things).

7. Modifying and Combining Paths.

One Million Ways to Replicate. Dragging and Dropping. Joining Points and Paths. Splitting Paths into Pieces. Carving Holes in Paths. Use a Path to Change a Path.

8. Developing a Flair for the Schematic.

Measuring and Positioning with Microscopic Precision. Aligning and Distributing Objects. Creating and Using Custom Guides. Smart Guides. Assembling Paths into Groups. When Grouping Isn't Protection Enough. The Celebrated Stacking Order. Working with Drawing Layers. Vacuuming Your Illustration.

9. The Magic of Transformations and Distortions.

Making Objects Bigger and Smaller. Rotating Objects. Flipping Objects Back and Forth. Slanting Objects the Weird Way. Multiple Transformations on Multiple Objects. Free Transform for All. The Distortion Funhouse.

III. TYPE, SYMBOLS, AND GRAPHS.

10. How to Handle Typical Type.

Establishing Text Objects. Selecting and Editing Text. Formatting Type. The Amazing World of Tabs. The Text Eyedropper and Paint Bucket.

11. Some of Your Wackier Text Effects.

Topsy-Turvy Type on a Curve. Filling a Shape with Text. Flowing Text from One Shape to Another. Wrapping Type Around Graphics. Importing and Exporting Text. Checking Your Spelling. Searching for and Replacing Stuff. Creating Rows and Columns. Fitting Text on the Fly. Converting Character Outlines to Paths.

12. Symbolic Acts.

What Are Symbols, and Why Do I Need Them? Creating Instances. Modifying Instances with the Symbolism Tools. The Symbolism Control Room. The Symbols Palette. Modifying Symbols. Bringing in Other Symbols.

13. This is Your Brain on Graphs.

Creating a Graph. Defining the Graph Size with the Graph Tool. Using the Graph Data Window. Organizing Your Data for Different Kinds of Graphs. Applying Automated Changes to a Graph. Manually Customizing a Graph. Graphing with Graphics.

IV. COLOR AND EFFECTS.

14. The Slippery Science of Color.

The Great White Light and the Breakaway Color Republics. Choosing Your Color Space. Finding Your Colors in Illustrator. Applying the Overprint Options. Applying Automated Color Manipulations. Color Management Essentials.

15. Fills, Mulit-Fills, and Fab Fills.

Filling Closed and Open Paths. Filling Type and Text Blocks. Applying a Single Fill. Applying Multi-Fills and Effects. Gradients in the Key of Life. Adjusting a Gradient Fill to Fit its Path. Gradient Mesh. Filling Objects with Patterns.

16. Strokes and Brushes.

Basic Stroke Attributes. Applying a Stroke from the Stroke Palette. Stroke Positions and Multi-Strokes. Stroke Commands, Filters, and Effects. Brushing Up on Your Paths.

17. Blends, Masks, and Pen & Ink Fills.

Blending Paths. Creating a Blend. Cool Blend Tool Tricks. Masking: Filling Objects with Objects. Hatching Textures.

18. Transparency.

Opacity. Blending Modes. Knockout Groups. Opacity Masks. Using Transparency. Transparency and Flattening.

19. Hog-Wild Special Effects.

The Complete History of Filters and Effects. Twist: Tool, Filter, and Effect. Live Effects and the Appearance Palette 101. Working with Styles. Transferring Attributes. The Scary Path Wigglers. Orderly Distortions and Transformations. Pathfinder Effects.

20. Becoming Master of the Raster.

Raster Effects on Vector Shapes. Filters and Effects for Roster Images. Converting Pixels into Vectors. Linked or Embedded. Hoist that Raster and Rake those Pixels. Trading Artwork with Photoshop.

V. GOING PUBLIC.

21. Creating Web Graphics.

The Ascent of Web Graphics. (Web) Graphically Speaking. Creating Web Graphics. Slicing Web Graphics. SVG Filter Effects. Save for Web Dialog. Creating a Navigation Bar with Slices and CSS Layers.

22. Animation and Data-Driven Graphics.

Designing SWF Files. Creating SVG Graphics. Data-Driven SVG Graphics.

23. Illustrator and Other Programs.

Working with Adobe Photoshop. Working with Other Image Editors. Working with Page-Layout Programs. Working with Other Drawing Programs. Working with Web Authoring Programs. Working with Video. Making Color Appear Consistent across Programs.

24. Printing Your Illustrations.

Printing Composite Pages. Printing Color Seperations. Unusual Printing Considerations. Creating PDF Files.

25. Illustrator Actions.

Creating a New Action. Changing an Action. Batch Processing Actions. Saving and Loading Actions.

Index.