Datasheet

Part I ✦ Illustrator Basics

wince at a new word processing document with the lone insertion point blinking

away.

So, Picasso decides he’ll “play” with the software before designing anything

“for real.” He chooses the rectangle tool first, clicks, drags, and voilà! A rectangle

appears on the screen! His confidence soars. He may try the other shape tools next,

but sooner or later Picasso starts playing with some of the software’s other features.

Eventually, he eyes the dreaded Pen tool. And thus starts his downward spiral into

terror.

Confusion ensues. Hours of staring at an Illustrator document and wondering “Why?”

take up the majority of his time. Picasso doesn’t really understand fills and strokes,

he doesn’t understand stacking order and layers, and he certainly doesn’t under-

stand Bézier curves.

Even Picasso’s painting-factory boss can’t help him much with Illustrator; questions

result in a knowing nod and the customary tilt and swivel of his head toward the

Illustrator manual. Picasso goes through the tutorial three times, but whenever he

strays one iota from the set-in-stone printed steps, nothing works. Picasso becomes

convinced that the Pen tool is Satan’s pitchfork in disguise. Patterns make about as

much sense as differential equations. Then he encounters things such as effects

that can be edited later (huh?), miter limits for strokes (yeah, right), and the differ-

ence between targeting a group or all the objects in that group (huh? again). All are

subjects that might as well have been written about in a third-century Chinese

dialect, such as the hard-to-find Chinese Book of Patterns.

Picasso had never used or seen software as different as Illustrator.

Ah, but you have an advantage over Picasso. You have this book. The following

sections in this chapter start with an overview of the user interface and all the

different controls that will enable you to do great things. The remaining chapters

in this part will focus on the basics of Illustrator, including topics that range from

setting up a new document to understanding exactly what paths are and how

Illustrator uses them.

Getting started with Illustrator

The first step in getting started is to install the software. Appendix D, “Installing

Illustrator,” helps you with this process, which is slightly different depending on the

type of computer you are using. Once installed, you can launch Illustrator in one of

the following ways:

✦ Double-click its application icon

✦ Double-click an Illustrator document

✦ In Windows, choose Start ➪ Programs ➪ Adobe Illustrator

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