Datasheet

Learning the
Illustrator
Interface
N
ot too long ago, commercial artists and illustrators
worked by hand, not on computers. It might seem
hard to believe, but they spent hours and hours with
T-squares, rulers, French curves, and type galleys from
their local typesetters.
Now, of course, most artists and artist wannabes spend hours
and hours with their computers, mouses (or should that be
mice?), monitors, and onscreen type that they set themselves.
Some traditional artists are still out there, of course, but more
and more make the transition to the digital world every day.
Once that transition is accomplished, computer artists usually
come face-to-face with Illustrator, the industry-standard,
graphics-creation software for both print and the Web. The
following is a typical example of how people get to know
Illustrator.
Picasso Meets Illustrator:
Getting Started
Illustrator arrives and the enthusiastic artist-to-be — we’ll
call him Picasso — opens the box, pops in the CD-ROM, and
installs the product, while glancing at the quick reference
card and thumbing through the manual. A few minutes later
Picasso launches Illustrator and is faced with a clean, brand
new, empty document. A world of possibilities awaits, only a
few mouse clicks away. But Picasso is a little intimidated by
all that white space, just as many budding young writers
1
1
CHAPTER
✦✦✦✦
In This Chapter
Getting Illustrator
started
Learning the user
interface elements
Navigating around
Illustrator
Using the Edit
commands
✦✦✦✦
033658-3 ch01.F 1/24/02 12:59 PM Page 3