Adobe Illustrator CS Hands-On Training

Jeff Van West started working with computers on his middle-school's Apple II with 24 KB of RAM and no disk drive. He opened and saved his programs by attaching a cassette tape recorder borrowed from the math teacher. Over the years, he taught himself the ins and outs of various Apple, MS-DOS, Macintosh, Windows, and UNIX systems, as well as basic new software packages whenever he needed to use them. Jeff has always had a passion for teaching and spent several years applying his technical and design skills developing science curricula for elementary and middle-school teachers. He also developed a program linking teachers and students over the Internet in the early days of the Web. Jeff now has over a decade of experience as an instructional designer, freelance writer, and corporate trainer. He has worked internationally to facilitate collaborative projects in numerous fields, including information technology and the aviation industry. His books and multimedia technical training programs have been used in North America, Europe, Japan, and Australia. When he's not writing, teaching, playing with his children, or cooking dinner (what he refers to as "satisfying his inner Jewish grandmother"), Jeff can often be found at the controls of an airplane. In 1998, Jeff added flight instruction to his teaching repertoire and has loved sharing the freedom of flight with students ever since.

1. Introduction.


A Note from Lynda. About Jeff Van West. Acknowledgments. How to Use This Book. Macintosh and Windows System Differences. Macintosh and Windows Screen Captures. Illustrator CS Systems Requirements. What's on the CD-ROM? File Naming Conventions. A Note to Windows 2000 Users. Illustrator Help Files. What Makes Vector-Based Illustration Different? Varied Uses of Illustrator.



2. Interface.


The Welcome Screen. Exercise 1. The Illustrator Workspace. The Toolbox. Keyboard Shortcuts. Exercise 2. Palette Control. Setting Preferences.



3. Selecting and Arranging.


Exercise 1. Selecting and Arranging Shapes. Exercise 2. Basic Stroke and Fill. Exercise 3. Aligning and Distributing. Exercise 4. Grouping and Group Selection.



4. Basic Shapes.


What Are Shapes? Path. Stroke and Fill. Exercise 1. Rectangles and Ellipses. Exercise 2. Polygons and Stars. Exercise 3. Editing Points on a Shape. Exercise 4. Editing Points with Direction Handles.



5. Fills, Strokes, and Color.


What Are Color Models? Exercise 1. Color and Color Swatches. More About Colors. Uses for Color Models. Process Colors Versus Spot Colors. Out of Gamut. The Color Picker. Exercise 2. Patterns and Pattern Swatches. Exercise 3. Swatch Libraries. Exercise 4. Strokes and Dashes. Exercise 5. Caps and Joins. Exercise 6. Linear Gradients. Exercise 7. Radial Gradients. Exercise 8. Multiple Strokes.



6. Transformations.


Exercise 1. Precision Rotation and Scaling. Exercise 2. Reflection. Exercise 3. Scaling Strokes and the Transform Palette. Exercise 4. Shearing. Exercise 5. Free Transform Tool.



7. Layers and Appearances.


Exercise 1. Layers and Sublayers. Exercise 2. Selecting, Organizing, and Renaming. Sublayers Versus Groups. The Appearance Palette. Exercise 3. Targeting and Appearance. Exercise 4. Duplicating Appearances. Exercise 5. Duplicating Layers. Exercise 6. Moving Layers Between Documents. Exercise 7. Opacity.



8. Adding Text.


Type Containers. Type at a Point. Type on a Path. Type in an Area. Selecting Text. Exercise 1. Type at a Point. Fonts. OpenType. TrueType. PostScript. Multiple Master. Exercise 2. Type in an Area. Area Type Options. Exercise 3. Type on a Path. Exercise 4. Placing Text. Spell Checker. Exercise 5. Character Formatting. Exercise 6. Paragraph Formatting. Exercise 7. Threaded Text.



9. Type Appearances and Styles.


Exercise 1. The Eyedropper Tool and Type. Exercise 2. Setting Custom Tabs. Exercise 3. Paragraph Styles. Exercise 4. Character Styles. Exercise 5. OpenType and Glyphs. Access to Glyphs. Exercise 6. Creating Outlines. Legacy Text.



10. Pen and Point Tools.


When to Pen. Open and Closed Paths. Exercise 1. Drawing with the Pen. Exercise 2. Converting Anchor Points. Exercise 3. Tracing an Image. Exercise 4. Continuing and Joining Paths.



11. Pencil and Line Segment Tools.


Exercise 1. Pencil Tool. Exercise 2. Smooth and Eraser Tools. Exercise 3. Line Segment Tool. Exercise 4. Arc Tool. Exercise 5. Spiral Tool.



12. Paintbrush Tool.


Exercise 1. Calligraphic Brushes. Exercise 2. Art Brushes. Exercise 3. Custom Art Brush. Exercise 4. Pattern Brushes. Exercise 5. Scatter Brushes. Exercise 6. Brush Libraries.



13. Path Tools.


Exercise 1. Compound Paths. Exercise 2. The Knife Tool. Exercise 3. Shape Modes. Exercise 4. Pathfinders. Shape Modes Versus Pathfinders. Shape Modes. Pathfinders.



14. Masks and Blending Modes.


Exercise 1. Clipping Masks. Exercise 2. Masking with Type. Exercise 3. Opacity Masks. Exercise 4. Blending Modes.



15. Envelopes, Meshes, and Blends.


Exercise 1. Warp Distortion. Exercise 2. Top Object Distortion. Exercise 3. Mesh Distortion. Exercise 4. Gradient Mesh and the Mesh Tool. Exercise 5. Blending Paths.



16. Symbols.


Exercise 1. Placing Symbols. Exercise 2. Modifying Symbols. Exercise 3. Creating Symbols. Exercise 4. Symbol Sets and the Symbol Sprayer. Exercise 5. Symbol Stainer and Styler. Exercise 6. Symbol Libraries.



17. Filters and Effects.


Exercise 1. Filters Versus Effects. Choosing Between Filters and Effects. Why Two Menus? Exercise 2. Enhancing Objects with Effects. Exercise 3. Creating Dynamic Objects. Exercise 4. Transforming Objects. Exercise 5. Raster Art Filters and Effects. Document Raster Settings. Exercise 6. Target Practice with New Scribble.



18. Graphic Styles.


Exercise 1. Using Graphic Styles. Exercise 2. Merging Graphic Styles. Exercise 3. Editing Graphic Styles. Exercise 4. Creating and Saving Graphic Styles.



19. 3D.


Visualizing 3D. Exercise 1. Extrude. Exercise 2. Extruding Type. Exercise 3. Surface Shading and Lighting Angle. Exercise 4. Bevel. Exercise 5. Rotate. Exercise 6. Revolve. Exercise 7. Revolve with Offset. Exercise 8. Mapping Art onto 3D Objects.



20. Templates and Actions.


What's Special About a Template? Exercise 1. Using Templates. Exercise 2. Creating Templates. Exercise 3. Using Actions. Exercise 4. Editing Actions.



21. Web Graphics.


Web Graphics 101. Exercise 1. RGB Mode and Web Color Issues. Exercise 2. Slicing and Optimizing. More About Save for Web. Exercise 3. Creating a Different Layout. Exercise 4. Image Maps. Exercise 5. Writing Macromedia Flash Files.



A. Troubleshooting FAQ and Technical Support.


Adobe Technical Support on the Web. Adobe Person-to-Person Technical Support. Peachpit Press. lynda.com. Frequently Asked Questions.



B. Online Resources.


Discussion Groups. Listserv. A Few Third-Party Illustrator Web Sites.



C. Print Issues.


General Printing. Service Bureaus. Important Vocabulary Terms and Concepts. Valuable Techniques.



Index.


Bonus Part on HOT CD-ROM.


22. Integration CD:2.


Exercise 1. Integrating with Photoshop CS CD:3. Smart Objects and SVG CD:11. Exercise 2. GoLive Illustrator Smart Objects CD:12. Exercise 3. Importing Illustrator-Generated HTML and Graphics CD:23. Exercise 4. Illustrator CS and Acrobat CS CD:26. Exercise 5. Illustrator CS to Macromedia Flash CD:30. Exercise 6. Using Place Command with InDesign CD:35. Exercise 7. Copy from Illustrator, Paste in InDesign CD:41. Exercise 8. Illustrator Files in QuarkXPress CD:45.