Real World Adobe Illustrator 9

Deke McClelland is a best-selling author of more than 30 books on computer graphics and desktop publishing, including Real World Illustrator 8, Macworld Photoshop 5 Bible, Photoshop Studio Secrets, and The FreeHand 8 Bible. Sandee Cohen has been teaching and training on the Macintosh for over seven years. She is also the author of several editions of Peachpit's Visual QuickStart Guides to Macromedia Freehand and Fireworks.

I. STARTING.

1. Illustrator 9: What It Is.


Adobe: the “Microsoft of Graphics”. Where Illustrator Fits In. Close, But Not Kin: Illustrator Versus Photoshop. The Lowdown on Illustrator 9. Growing up with Illustrator.

2. Witness the Splendor That Is Illustrator.


Getting Illustrator Up and Running. Accommodating Your Personal Style.

3. Objects, Images, and the File Formats That Love Them.


Preparing a New Illustration. Opening and Placing. Getting Around in Illustrator. Saving Your Work to Disk.

II. CREATING.

4. Drawing the Simple Stuff.


Everything You Need to Know about Paths. The Simplest of Simple Shapes. Drawing Free-Form Paths. Painting Paths. Tracing Templates—No Longer a Black-and-White Issue. Fixing Things. Yet One Tools Beats Them All.

5. 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. Operating on Points Long after the Path Is Done. The Stretch Tool. Reliving the Past.

6. How to Handle Typical Type.


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

7. 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 and Replacing Stuff. Creating Rows and Columns. Fitting Text on the Fly. Converting Character Outlines to Paths.

8. 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.

III. CHANGING.

9. Modifying and Combining Paths.


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

10. 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.

11. The Magical World of Transformations.


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.

12. Hog-Wild Special Effects.


Freelance Features. Twirl: Tool, Filter, and Effect. Using Live Effects. Imperfecting Paths. Orderly Distortions and Transformations. Round Corners. Pathfinder Effects.

13. Becoming Master of the Raster.


Raster Effects on Vector Shapes. Filters and Effects for Raster Images. Converting Pixels into Vectors. Hatching a Sketch. Linked or Embedded. Trading Artwork with Photoshop.

IV. COLORING.

14. The Slippery Science of Color.


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

15. Fills, Multi-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. Transparency.


Opacity. Setting and Displaying the Transparency Grid. Knockout Groups. Opacity Masks. Using Transparency. Analyzing Transparency.

18. Blends, Masks, and Ink Pen Fills.


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

19. Web Graphics and Animations.


Creating Web Graphics. Save for Web Application. Creating Flash (SWF) Graphics and Animations. Creating SVG Graphics.

20. Working Smarter and Faster.


Taking Illustrator's Shortcuts. Moving Into Actions. Working With Styles. Transferring Attributes. Contextual Menus. Online Resources.

21. Printing Your Illustrations.


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