The first step in getting started is to install the software, which is slightly different depending on whether you use a Mac or a Windows computer. After the software is installed, you can launch Illustrator in one of the following ways:

Now that you know how to open the program, it's time to learn how to close it. You can end your Illustrator session at any time by choosing File

You can also close Illustrator in one of these ways:

The document window, as shown in Figure 2.1, is where you perform all your work. It contains two main elements: the Artboard and the Pasteboard.

Illustrator windows act like windows in most other programs. You use the title bar at the top of the window to move the window around your screen. On the title bar is the name of the document. If you've not yet saved your document, the name of the document is Untitled-1, with the number changing for each new document you create. (Hint: Save it as soon as you create it!) Next to the title of the document is the current viewing percentage relative to actual size.

Tip

If you're using a Mac, after you save a document, you can

The scroll bars let you see what is above and below or right and left of the current viewing area. I discuss scroll bars later in this chapter.

Three vital buttons help you close, minimize, and maximize the various windows you open in Illustrator. You find these buttons in the upper-left corner on a Mac and in the upper-right corner in Windows. In Windows, you also find a second set of these buttons — the upper set controls the entire Illustrator window, while the lower set controls the document window.

In addition to these buttons, Illustrator offers three options that help you quickly access your files. The Cascade, Tile, and Arrange Icons commands are all accessible via the Window menu:

Figure 2.1. The document window contains the page surrounded by the Artboard.

Understanding the Artboard

The Artboard is the area of your document that prints. The area of the Artboard doesn't have to be the same as the printed document. The Artboard is designated by black lines that form a rectangle in the document window and shows the largest area in which you can print. To set the size for the Artboard, click the Artboard tool, which allows you to change the size of the Artboard by dragging handles just as you would with the Bounding Box (where you also drag the handles to resize length and width of a selection). If you don't want to see the Artboard (perhaps because you're working on a large document that won't entirely fit on the Artboard), choose View

Tip

To change the printing page size, use the Media options in the Print dialog box. To access the Print dialog box, choose File

If you're placing your Illustrator files into another application, such as Photoshop or InDesign, the size of the Artboard limits the size of your artwork; anything extending outside the Artboard doesn't appear in other applications.

Getting to know the work area

When using Illustrator, the worst thing that can happen is for you to lose an illustration on which you're working. "Where'd it all go?" you cry. This can happen very easily in Illustrator. Just click a few times on the gray parts of the scroll bars at the bottom of the document window. Each time you click, you move about half the width (or height) of your window, and a few clicks later, your page and everything on it is no longer in front of you. Instead, you see the work area's scratch area, usually a vast expanse of white nothingness.

The work area measures 227.5 × 227.5 inches, which works out to about 360 square feet of drawing space. At actual size, you see only a very small section of the Artboard. A little letter-size document looks extremely tiny on a work area this big. If you get lost in the work area, a quick way back is to choose View

Note

Although the View

This discussion assumes, of course, that you've actually drawn artwork on the Artboard. If you've drawn your artwork way off to the side of the work area, away from the Artboard, you may have more difficulty finding your drawing. At this point, you probably want to choose View

The Tools panel, as shown in Figure 2.2, contains all the tools that you use to draw objects in your documents. The Tools panel normally appears as a panel on the left edge of the document window. To close the Tools panel, you can either click the x (the little circle on a Mac) at the top of the Tools panel or choose Window

If you drag the Tools panel to the right of its sticky panel location, it becomes a floating panel. To turn it back into a panel, drag it to the left edge of the document.

To choose a tool, click the tool you want to use in its slot within the Tools panel and then release the mouse button. This highlights it on the Tools panel. You can also choose tools by pressing a key on the keyboard. For example, pressing P selects the Pen tool. You can deactivate a tool only by selecting another one.

Many tools have additional popup tools, which are tools that appear only when you click and hold the mouse on the default tool. Illustrator denotes the default tools that have popup tools with a little triangle in the lower-right corner of the tool. To choose a popup tool, click and hold a tool with a triangle until the popup tools appear and then drag to the popup tool you want. The new popup tool replaces the default tool in that tool slot and stays there until you choose another tool from that tool slot.

Any tool with a popup option also has a tearoff tab on the right side. You can make the flyout a free-floating panel by clicking this tearoff tab. Use this feature if you find that you're constantly switching between tools in that tearoff. Then, you won't have to click+hold and drag to the next tool.

What if you forget the function of a specific tool or you can't tell the difference between the various tools in Illustrator? No problem! Illustrator comes equipped with a handy Tool Tips feature that identifies tools quickly and easily. When you have Tool Tips activated (and it is by default), you simply move your cursor over the element you want to identify, and a yellow text box pops up and tells you its name. For example, when you place your cursor over the Type tool, a box appears with the words Type Tool (T). The letter within the parentheses indicates the keyboard shortcut for the tool. In this example, if you press T, you activate the Type tool without clicking it. Illustrator provides Tool Tips for every tool in the Tools panel as well as for the panel controls.

If you find the Tool Tips annoying or if you know the tips well enough not to need the Tool Tips, you can disable them in the General screen of the Preferences dialog box. To open the Preferences dialog box, simply choose Edit (Illustrator)

Panels are small windows that are similar to dialog boxes. Panels can float or be docked. To make the following discussion a little more readable, I'll refer to both as panels; they're mostly interchangeable terms when discussing how they work and the contents of each of them, but differences are noted below.

Figure 2.2. The Tools panel holds all the tools you need to draw in Illustrator. The Tools panel on the left is the single-column version that you see by default in Illustrator, while the one on the right is the double-column version.

Panels allow you to control virtually every aspect of the Illustrator drawing environment. Illustrator has 34 standard panels and an unlimited number of library panels (for swatches, symbols, brushes, styles, and more), all of which can remain open while you work on your document panel. Technically speaking, a panel is a modeless window. The big difference between a modeless window and a dialog box is that you don't have to close the modeless window to perform other tasks. Therefore, you can work with the features on one panel without having to close another panel.

Unlike windows, panels are never really active. Instead, the one you're working in is in the front. If the panel has editable text fields, Illustrator highlights the active one or makes the text cursor blink. To bring a panel to the forefront — that is, bring it into focus — simply click in it anywhere.

Panels are like regular windows in many ways. Each panel has a title bar that you can click and drag to move it. The title bar also has buttons for minimizing a regular panel or zooming (back to regular size) a minimized one and closing the panel. Each panel also has a tab with the name of the panel within it.

Occasionally, a panel has a handle on the lower-right corner that looks like a triangle made up of dots, as seen in Figure 2.3. You can use this handle for changing the panel's size by clicking and dragging the corner containing the handle.

Figure 2.3. You can resize a panel that has a dotted triangle in its lower-right corner.

Linking together and tearing apart panels

You can place panels together in different combinations by tabbing and docking them. Tabbing stacks the tabs for several panels into a single panel. Docking aligns the panels without stacking them into the same space.

Each panel (except for the Tools panel) has a tab on it. Clicking the tab of a panel brings it to the front. Dragging a tab from one panel to another moves that panel into another panel. Dragging a tab out of a panel makes the panel separate from the previous panel. Figure 2.4 includes a set of panels that have been tabbed together. When you create a set of panels like this, it stays grouped together even if you quit Illustrator and relaunch.

If you drag a floating panel to the right side of the screen, it becomes a docked panel. If you drag a docked panel into the document window, it becomes a floating panel.

Note

By default, Illustrator tabs certain panels together. You can drag them apart and then tab others together to suit your method of working.

Tip

To restore the default panel layout, choose Window

You can dock panels together by dragging the tab of one panel to the bottom of another panel. When the bottom of the other panel darkens, releasing the mouse button docks the moved panel to the bottom of the other one. Then, when you move the other panel, the docked panel moves with it. To separate a panel from the others, click and drag the tab away from the original panel.

Figure 2.4. This panel contains a number of panels tabbed together.

Although Adobe places more emphasis on Illustrator's panels and other elements, such as its Tools panel, you still find many important and useful features in Illustrator's menus.

Some general rules apply to Illustrator menus:

Panel menus

Not only does the main document window have menus, but panels have menus too. You can find a variety of features and options to meet your creative needs. To open these menus, simply find and click the triangle located in the top-right corner of most panels. Figure 2.5 gives an example of the options you have available when you access the Swatches panel's menu. These options and features change with each panel.

Figure 2.5. You can find a multitude of options by accessing a panel's menu.

Context-sensitive menus

Illustrator provides context-sensitive menus that appear right under your cursor as you work. Right-click (Ctrl+click) anywhere in a document window to open a context-sensitive menu. These menus contain commands that relate to the type of work you're doing and the specific tool you have. Figure 2.6 shows a context-sensitive menu that opens in a document when a rectangle shape is created and selected. This menu looks different if another object is selected.

Note

Context menus in Illustrator tend to be less useful than other programs that rely heavily on contextual menus to accomplish tasks. There are very few commands that only appear in the context-sensitive menus, such as Isolate selected group and Send to current layer. Don't fall into the trap of right-clicking to see what you can do; Illustrator relies much more heavily on panels, tools, and the menu bar options (as well as numerous keyboard shortcuts) than it ever does on context menus.

Figure 2.6. When you right-click in the document window, Illustrator reveals a context-sensitive menu.

Typing keyboard commands

Keyboard commands are shortcuts for common activities that you perform in Illustrator. These shortcuts typically use the Ctrl (

Keyboard commands are as important to an Illustrator artist as the mouse is; with a little practice, you can learn them quickly. Besides, many of the default keyboard commands are the same from program to program, which makes you an instant expert in software that you haven't used yet! Good examples of this are the Cut/Copy/Paste, Select All, and Save commands:

• Cut/Copy/Paste: You activate these by pressing Ctrl+X (

  

• Select All: You can select everything in a document by pressing Ctrl+A (

  

• Save: You can quickly save your work by pressing Ctrl+S (

  

The status bar, located on the lower left of your document window, has a Zoom popup list and a button that displays useful and otherwise difficult-to-find information. To change the item shown in the status bar, click the triangle to the right of Show and then choose a different item. Although the default for this button displays the tool that you're currently using, you can change the information to display one of the following instead:

The most basic navigational concept in Illustrator is the ability to zoom to different magnification levels. Illustrator's magnification levels work like a magnifying glass. In the real world, you use a magnifying glass to see details that aren't readily visible without it. In the Illustrator world, you use the different magnification levels to see details that aren't readily visible at the 100% view.

Changing the magnification levels of Illustrator doesn't affect the illustration. If you zoom in to 400% and print, the illustration still prints at the size it would if the view were 100% (you can adjust the printing size in the Print dialog box). It doesn't print four times as large. Figure 2.7 shows the same Illustrator document at 100% and 400% magnification.

In Illustrator, 100% magnification means that the artwork you see on the screen has the same physical dimensions when it prints. If you place a printout next to the on-screen image at 100% magnification, it appears at about the same size, depending on your monitor resolution (the higher the resolution, the smaller the document looks on-screen). Over time, monitor pixels per inch have increased from the standard 72 pixels per inch (ppi) of 1990s models to today's 96 ppi to 120 ppi versions, so if you have a flat-screen monitor, the on-screen version looks noticeably smaller than the printed version.

Perhaps the easiest way to control the magnification of your artwork is with the Zoom tool. This tool (which is located in the right column of the Tools panel) can magnify a certain area of artwork and then return to the standard view.

Figure 2.7. An Illustrator document at 100% (top) and 400% (bottom) magnifications

To use the Zoom tool to magnify an area, choose it from the Tools panel by clicking it once. The Zoom cursor takes the place of the Arrow cursor (or whatever tool was previously selected). It looks like a magnifying glass with a plus sign in it. Clicking any spot in the illustration enlarges the illustration to the next magnification level, with the place you clicked centered on your screen. The highest magnification level is 6400% — which, as all you math aficionados know, is 64 times (not 6,400 times!) bigger than the original. Where you click with the Zoom tool is very important:

If you're interested in seeing a particular part of the document close up, click that part at each magnification level to ensure that it remains in the window.

If you zoom in too far, you can use the Zoom tool while pressing Alt (Option) to zoom out (you see a minus sign in the middle of the magnifying glass to indicate this). Clicking with the Zoom tool while pressing Alt (Option) reduces the magnification level to the next-lowest level. You can zoom out to 3.13% (1/32 actual size). Releasing Alt (Option) causes the Zoom tool to zoom in instead of out.

When you use the Zoom tool, you magnify everything in the document, not just the illustration. You magnify all paths, objects, the Artboard, and the Page Setup boundaries equally. However, the way certain objects appear (the thickness of path selections, points, handles, gridlines, guides, and Illustrator user interface components, such as panels and windows) doesn't change when you zoom in.

If you need to zoom in to see a specific area in the document window, use the Zoom tool to draw a marquee by clicking and dragging diagonally around the objects that you want to magnify. The area thus magnifies as much as possible so that everything inside the box just fits in the window that you have open. If you drag a marquee box as you press and hold Alt (Option), you do the same thing as if you had just clicked to zoom out.

You also can zoom in and out by using commands in the View menu. Choose View

Although Illustrator can zoom to any level, it uses 23 default zoom levels when you click the Zoom tool or when you access the Zoom In and Zoom Out menu items (or their respective keyboard commands). Table 2.1 lists each of the default Zoom In and Zoom Out default levels.

Zooming to Fit in Window size

Fit in Window instantly changes the magnification level of the document so that the entire Artboard (not necessarily the artwork, if it isn't located on the page) fits in the window and is centered in it. You can choose from two different methods to change the document view to the Fit in Window size:

• Use the View menu: One way to automatically change to the Fit in Window view is to choose View

  

• Use the Hand tool slot: Simply double-click the Hand tool.

Tip

You can quickly go to 3.13% by pressing Ctrl (

Zooming to a specific magnification

If you want to view a document at a specific zoom level, double-click the view area at the bottom-left corner of the active document window, type the magnification you want to zoom to, and then press Enter or Return.

Note

When you specify a magnification, you don't change the document. Rather, you change how you view the document. For this reason, you can never undo any type of magnification-level change. Choosing Edit

Of course, being able to zoom in very closely to your artwork does have a pitfall. The more you zoom in on an illustration, the less of that illustration you see at one time. The Navigator panel (shown in Figure 2.8), which you access by choosing Window

Figure 2.8. The Navigator panel shows a snapshot of the document.

Warning

The Navigator panel can slow down Illustrator if your artwork contains many patterns, gradients, and gradient mesh objects. To avoid this slowdown, you can close the Navigator panel by choosing Window

Sometimes, after you zoom in to a high magnification, part of the drawing that you want to see is outside the window area. Instead of zooming in and out repeatedly, you can use the scroll bars on the right side and bottom edges of the document window to move around inside the document. The right scroll bar controls where you are vertically in the document window. The bottom scroll bar controls where you are horizontally in the document window.

The scroll bars contain three elements: up and down arrows, a gray area (or bar), and a thumb, also called the elevator box, which is a gray square (in Windows) or a blue oval (on a Mac) that rides along the scroll bar. The gray area of the right scroll bar is proportionate to the vertical size of the work area (the space around the Artboard). If the little elevator box is at the top of the scroll bar, you're viewing the top edge of the work area. If it's centered, you're viewing the vertical center of the work area. The techniques are as follows:

The Hand tool improves on the scroll bars. The Hand tool — which looks like a hand — is located at the bottom of the first column of the Tools panel, just above the color options.

Instead of being limited to only horizontal and vertical movements, you can use the Hand tool to scroll in any direction, including diagonally. The Hand tool is especially useful for finding your way around a document when you're viewing it at a high magnification level. The higher the magnification level, the more you're likely to use the Hand tool.

Tip

To quickly access the Hand tool, press H or press and hold the spacebar. Clicking and dragging the page moves the document around inside the document window while the spacebar is pressed. If you release the spacebar, you return to the previous tool. This works for all tools, but the Type tool works a little differently. If you're currently using the Type tool in a text area, press Ctrl+spacebar (

When you click in the document, be sure to click the side that you want to see. Clicking at the top of the document and then dragging down allows you to scroll down through almost an entire document at a height of one window. Clicking in the center and then dragging allows you to scroll through only half a window's size at a time.

The best thing about the Hand tool is that it works live. As you drag, the document moves under the Hand. If you don't like where it's going, you can drag it back, still live. The second best thing is that accessing it requires only one keystroke: either pressing H or pressing and holding the spacebar.

Use the red rectangle in the Navigator panel to quickly scroll to another location within a document. Clicking and dragging within the red rectangle moves the viewing area around live, whereas clicking outside the rectangle snaps the view to a new location.

So, now you've learned how to zoom and pan around the document window, and you probably have many different sections of your artwork that you want to focus on. Illustrator lets you create a number of windows for the current artwork by choosing Window

This option creates a new window that's the same size as the current window. You can then zoom and pan within this new window while maintaining the previous window. You can place these windows side by side to see the artwork from two unique perspectives. Illustrator gives each new window a different reference number, which appears in the title bar.

In the old days, everyone worked in Outline mode (originally called Artwork mode). In Outline mode, you see only the guts of the artwork — the paths without the fills and strokes applied, as shown in Figure 2.9. To see what the illustration looked like with the fills and strokes applied, you had to switch to Preview mode. Usually, the preview was not quite what you had in mind, but to make changes, you had to switch back to Outline, then to Preview again to check, and so forth. Many users of Illustrator from that time refer to it as the golden age — with not a little trace of sarcasm.

Today, Illustrator allows you to edit your work in both Outline and Preview modes. You can also print a document from either mode. Saving the document while you're in Outline mode doesn't affect anything in the document, but the next time you open it, it displays in Outline mode. The same thing applies to Preview mode: Whatever mode you're in is saved with the artwork.

You can't undo a Preview or Outline mode change (for example, going from Preview to Outline). If you make a Preview or Outline mode change and then close your document, Illustrator asks you if you want to save changes, which in this case refers only to the view change. The current view mode is always displayed in the title bar next to the document name.

Figure 2.9. Artwork shown in Outline mode

You may find working with a drawing in Outline mode significantly faster than working with it in Preview mode. In more complex drawings, the difference between Outline mode and Preview mode is significant, especially if you're working on a very slow computer. This is even more noticeable when the artwork contains gradients, patterns, placed artwork, and blends. Outline mode is much closer to what the printer sees — as paths. Paths define the edges of the objects with which you're working.

Getting used to Outline mode can take some time. Eventually, your brain can learn to know what the drawing looks like from seeing just the outlines, which show all the paths. The one big advantage of Outline mode is that you can see every path (a single entity in your drawing made up of one or more straight or curved lines) that isn't directly overlapping another path. In Preview mode, many paths can be hidden. In Outline mode, invisible masks are normally visible as paths, and you can select paths that were hidden by the fills of other objects. To select paths in Outline mode, you must click the paths directly or draw a marquee across or around them.

To change the current document to Outline mode, choose View

Note

You can change how a placed image displays in Outline mode by selecting or deselecting the Show Images in Outline Mode option in the Document Setup dialog box. To display the Document Setup dialog box, choose File

In Preview mode, you can see which objects overlap, which objects are in front and in back, where gradations begin and end, and how patterns are set up. In other words, the document looks just the way it will look when you print it.

Note

In Preview mode, the color you see on-screen only marginally represents the actual output because of the differences between the way computer monitors work (red, green, and blue colors — the more of each color, the brighter each pixel appears) and the way printing works (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black colors — the more of each color, the darker each area appears). Monitor manufacturers make a number of calibration tools that decrease the difference between what you see on a monitor and the actual output. You can also use software solutions. One software solution, CIE calibration, is built in to Adobe Illustrator (choose Edit

Choosing View

The biggest disadvantage of Preview mode is that Illustrator begins to draw and fill in the various parts of your image, which can take some time, especially if your computer is slow. When you change the image, the screen redraws. You can stop screen redraw by pressing Ctrl+Y (

Another disadvantage of Preview mode is being unable to select the path you want to change in the image. Sometimes, so much stuff appears on your screen that you don't know what to click! This problem can become more complicated when you include fills in the mix because the strokes on those paths are also visible. Instead of selecting a path by clicking it, you can select entire paths by clicking the insides of those paths in a filled area.

Drawing in Illustrator often results in one or more objects overlapping each other, meaning that the colors of these objects also overlap. When you print these objects, the top color blocks, or knocks out, anything below it. The advantage of using this feature is that your illustration becomes cheaper and easier for a printer to generate. To see how your overprint will look after you've set the Overprint feature, you can view it in Overprint Preview mode by choosing View

Because most Web page graphics are pixel-based, Pixel Preview mode is specifically intended for graphics that designers want to place on Web pages. This mode lets you view images before converting them to a Web graphics format. Choose View

Figure 2.10. With Illustrator's Pixel Preview option, you can view an image in Pixel Preview mode.

Illustrator has a special feature called custom views that allows you to save special views of an illustration. Custom views contain view information, including magnification, location, and whether the illustration is in Outline mode or Preview mode. If you have various layers or layer sets in Preview mode and others in Outline mode (layers in Preview mode are indicated by regular eyeballs to the left of their names in the Layers panel, while layers in Outline mode show an outlined eyeball), custom views can also save that information. Custom views, however, don't record whether templates, rulers, page tiling, edges, or guides are shown or hidden.

If you find yourself continually going to a certain part of a document, zooming in or out, and changing back and forth between the Preview and Outline modes, that document is a prime candidate for creating custom views. Custom views are helpful for showing clients artwork that you created in Illustrator. Instead of fumbling around in the client's presence, you can, for example, show the detail in a logo instantly if you've preset the zoom factor and position and have saved the image in a custom view.

To create a new view, set up the document in the way that you want to save the view. Then, choose View

So, you've been working on an illustration for an important client (actually, they all are important), and the client scheduled an appointment to see your progress, but the best part of the work is hidden behind the panels and the Tools panel. You can turn off the panels and the Tools panel or you can switch between the different screen modes.

Illustrator uses three screen modes represented by the three buttons at the bottom of the Tools panel. They are Standard Screen Mode, Full Screen Mode with Menu Bar, and Full Screen Mode. In addition to clicking the screen mode buttons in the Tools panel, you can also press F to switch between the three modes.

The most simplistic Edit command is Clear. In Illustrator, it works almost exactly like Backspace (Delete). When something is selected, choosing Clear eliminates what is selected.

You're probably asking yourself, "If Backspace (Delete) does the same thing, why do we need Clear?" or "Why didn't they just call the Clear command Backspace (Delete)?" Ah, the makers of Illustrator are a step ahead of you in this respect. Note that I said "almost" the same way; there's a subtle yet important difference in what the Clear command does and what Backspace (Delete) does, due to Illustrator's abundant use of panels.

If you're working on a panel and have just typed a value in an editable text field, Backspace (Delete) deletes the last character typed. If you tabbed down or up to an editable text field and highlighted text or if you dragged across text in an editable text field and highlighted text, then Backspace (Delete) deletes the highlighted characters. In all three situations, the Clear command deletes anything that's selected in the document.

The Cut, Copy, and Paste commands in Illustrator are very handy. Copying and cutting selected objects places them on the Clipboard, which is a temporary holding place for objects that have been cut or copied. After you place an object on the Clipboard, you can paste it in the center of the same document, the same location as the cut or copied object, or another document, such as Illustrator, InDesign, or Photoshop.

Choosing Cut from the Edit menu deletes the selected objects and copies them to the Clipboard, where they're stored until you cut or copy another object or until you shut down or restart your computer. Quitting Illustrator doesn't remove objects from the Clipboard.

Choosing Copy from the Edit menu works like Cut, but it doesn't delete the selected objects. Instead, it just copies them to the Clipboard, at which time you can choose Paste and slap another copy into your document.

Choosing Paste from the Edit menu places any objects on the Clipboard into the center of the document window. Paste is not available if nothing is on the Clipboard.

Now, here's the really cool part: Just because you've pasted the object somewhere doesn't mean it isn't on the Clipboard anymore. It is! You can paste again and again — and keep on pasting until you get bored or until your page is an indecipherable mess, whichever comes first. The most important rule to remember about Cut, Copy, and Paste is that whatever is currently on the Clipboard is replaced by anything that subsequently gets cut or copied to the Clipboard.

Cut, Copy, and Paste also work with text that you type in a document. Using the type tools, you can select type, cut or copy it, and then paste it. When you're pasting type, it goes wherever your blinking text cursor is located. If you have type selected (highlighted) and you choose Paste, the type that was selected is replaced by whatever you had on the Clipboard.

You can cut or copy as much or as little of an illustration as you choose; you're limited only by your hard drive space (which is used only if you run out of RAM).

Thanks to the Adobe PostScript capability on the Clipboard, Illustrator can copy paths to other Adobe software, including InDesign and Photoshop. Paths created in those packages (with the exception of InDesign) can be pasted into Illustrator. With Photoshop, you have the option of pasting your Clipboard contents as rasterized pixels instead of as paths.

You have the ability to drag Illustrator artwork from an Illustrator document right into a Photoshop document. In addition, because Adobe lets you move things in both directions, you can drag a Photoshop selection from any Photoshop document right into an Illustrator document.

You can keep undoing in Illustrator until you run out of either computer memory or patience. After you undo a bunch of times, you can redo by choosing Redo a bunch of times, which is found right below Undo in the Edit menu. And guess what? You can redo everything you've undone. So, if you undo 20 times, you can then immediately redo 20 times, and your art looks just like it did before you started undoing.

Choosing Undo from the Edit menu undoes the last activity that was performed in the document. Successive undos undo more and more activities, until the document is at the point where it was opened or created or you've run out of memory.

Choosing Redo from the Edit menu redoes the last undo. You can continue to redo undos until you're back to the point where you started undoing or you perform another activity, at which time you can no longer redo any previous undos. You have to undo the last thing you did and then actually do everything again. In other words, all the steps that you undid are gone. It's fine to use the Undo feature to go back and check out what you did, but after you've used multiple undos, don't do anything if you want to redo back to where you started undoing from. Got that?