Introduction

Adobe software has always been highly respected by creative professionals. Adobe creates tools that allow you to produce designs for all things, from printed brochures and posters, to websites, applications, and advanced video productions. The Adobe Creative Cloud is the company’s latest release of sophisticated and professional-level software that bundles many separate programs as a suite. Each program in the Creative Cloud works individually, or you can integrate the programs by using Adobe Bridge, an independent program that helps you control file management with thumbnails, metadata, and other organizational tools.

With Adobe Creative Cloud, a monthly membership offers you the entire collection of Adobe tools and more. Love print? Interested in websites and iPad apps? Ready to edit video? You can do it all. Plus, Creative Cloud members automatically get access to new products and exclusive updates as soon as they’re released. And, with cloud storage and the ability to sync to any device, your files are always right where you need them. Creative Cloud is available for individuals or teams.

The first is Creative Services, which are hosted services that you can use in your production work, in the delivery of your content. This includes a font service like Typekit, which enables the use and delivery of a broad foundry of cloud fonts across all of your work. A second area is Digital Publishing, which enables publishing rich media to tablets via the cloud. And the third category is Business Catalyst, which supports designing and operating websites for small businesses, with prebuilt services for things like handling e-commerce, doing customer relationship management, and integrating with social networks.

The second pillar is Creative Community, which is the community of creative people (like you!) around the world and which enables you to connect more easily with other creative people — it’s a place to share, to communicate, and to inspire each other with your work. The community is a critical part of our whole ecosystem, and it’s a critical part of the cloud. At the center of this is the web presence of the Creative Cloud, which is creative.adobe.com. And one of the great things there is it will understand all the formats you’re using in your creative work — PSD files, InDesign files, and Illustrator files. Where other cloud services might show you an icon describing the file type, this shows you the actual content, and you can interact with it in a context-sensitive way. It’s a much deeper understanding of creative content.

And lastly, the third pillar is Creative Applications — and these are enabling you to create not only on personal computers, but also wherever you are with mobile devices, all connected through the Creative Cloud. This includes a whole new collection of Adobe touch apps to run on tablets and other mobile devices. In addition, membership also includes access to all Adobe creative desktop products you know and love, including Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver and Premiere and InDesign, Adobe XD, and more. You can download and install any of these applications you choose as part of your membership, and these are all connected to Creative Cloud via desktop sync. They also interact with the touch apps, and you can move files between desktop and touch as you’re working.

Why Is It Important?

You can use the Adobe Creative Cloud programs to create a wide range of products, from illustrations, page layouts, websites, photographic compositions, video, and 3D images. Integrating the CC programs extends the possibilities for you as a designer. Don’t worry about the programs being too difficult to figure out — just come up with your ideas and start creating!

About This Book

Adobe Creative Cloud All-in-One For Dummies is written in a thorough and fun way to show you the basic steps of how to use each program included in the Creative Cloud package. You find out how to use each program individually and how to work with the programs together, extending your projects even further. You find out just how easy it is to use the programs by following simple steps so that you can discover the power of the Adobe software. You’ll be up and running in no time!

Here are some things you can do with this book:

• Create page layouts with text, drawings, and images in InDesign.
• Make illustrations such as logos, graphics, and data visualizations using drawing tools with Illustrator.
• Manipulate photographs by using filters and drawing or color correction tools with Photoshop.
• Create PDF (Portable Document Format) documents with Adobe Acrobat or other programs.
• Design web pages in Adobe XD that you can share with clients and team members as well as developers.
• Create animations such as GIFs on Photoshop, and User Experience interactions in Adobe XD.
• Create web images in various formats from Photoshop, Illustrator, and Adobe XD.

You discover the basics of how to create all these different kinds of things throughout the chapters in this book in fun, hands-on examples and clear explanations, getting you up to speed quickly!

Adobe Creative Cloud works for both Windows and the Macintosh. We cover both platforms in this book. When the keys you need to press or the menu choices you need to make differ between Windows and the Mac, we let you know by including instructions for both platforms. For example:

• Press the Alt (Windows) or Option (Mac) key.
• Choose Edit ⇒ Preferences ⇒ General (Windows) or InDesign ⇒ Preferences ⇒ General (Mac).

The programs in Creative Cloud often require you to press and hold down a key (or keys) on the keyboard and then click or drag with the mouse. For brevity’s sake, we shorten this action by naming the key you need to hold down and adding a click or drag, like this:

• Shift-click to select multiple files.
• Move the object by Ctrl-dragging (Windows) or ⌘-dragging (Mac).

This book is pretty thick; you may wonder whether you have to read it from cover to cover. You don’t have to read every page of this book to discover how to use the programs in the Creative Cloud. Luckily, you can choose bits and pieces that mean the most to you and will help you finish a project.

Icons supplement the material in each chapter with additional information that may interest or help you with your work. The Technical Stuff icons are helpful if you want to find out a bit more about technical aspects of using a program or your computer, but don’t feel that you need to read these icon paragraphs if technicalities don’t interest you.

Foolish Assumptions

You don’t need to know much before picking up this book and getting started with Creative Cloud. All you have to know is how to use a computer in a very basic way. If you can turn on the computer and use a mouse, you’re ready for this book. A bit of knowledge about basic computer operations and using software helps, but it isn’t necessary. We show you how to open, save, create, and manipulate files using the CC programs so that you can start working with the programs quickly. The most important ingredient to have is your imagination and creativity — we show you how to get started with the rest.

Icons Used in This Book

What’s a For Dummies book without icons pointing you in the direction of truly helpful information that’s sure to speed you along your way? Here we briefly describe each icon we use in this book.

The Tip icon points out helpful information that’s likely to make your job easier.

This icon marks a generally interesting and useful fact — something you may want to remember for later use.

The Warning icon highlights lurking danger. When we use this icon, we’re telling you to pay attention and proceed with caution.

When you see this icon, you know that there’s techie-type material nearby. If you’re not feeling technical-minded, you can skip this information.

Beyond the Book

You can find a little more helpful information on www.dummies.com, where you can peruse this book’s Cheat Sheet. To get this handy resource, go to the website and type Adobe Creative Cloud All-in-One For Dummies Cheat Sheet in the Search box.

The book you’re holding right now contains six minibooks. A seventh, on the topic of Adobe Acrobat, is available in PDF form at www.dummies.com. This minibook describes Acrobat and explains how to create and edit PDF files; how to add text, images, and interactive elements to PDF files; how to use commenting and annotation tools; and how to secure PDF documents. You can access this minibook at www.dummies.com/go/adobeccaiofd3e.

Where to Go from Here

Adobe Creative Cloud All-in-One For Dummies is designed so that you can read a chapter or section out of order, depending on what subjects you’re most interested in. Where you go from here is entirely up to you!

Book 1 is a great place to start reading if you’ve never used Adobe products or if you’re new to design-based software. Discovering the common terminology, menus, and panels can be quite helpful for later chapters...