2. Before You Draw

This chapter contains an overview of the workspace you’ll be using, plus an explanation of many of the basic features and tools that are part of almost every project: how to create a new document, understanding artboards, using guides, how to switch screen modes, and more. Some of this information won’t quite make sense to you until you start working on a project, but we want you to know it exists and where to find it when you need it.

Illustrator often provides several different ways to do a certain task, even such a basic one as creating a new document. The best method often depends on the task at hand or just a personal preference for how you like to work. We don’t try to describe all of the various options in every case, so be aware that as you become more familiar with Illustrator, you may discover alternative techniques that you prefer. It’s your job to explore!

Create a new document

To become familiar with your workspace and the panels that provide all the options for your drawing and painting tools, you first need to create a document. There are a couple of ways to do this. If you see the Welcome Screen (shown below) on your monitor when you open Illustrator, follow the directions in Task 1. If you do not see that screen, follow the directions in Task 2 to open a document from the File menu, as usual.

Task 1 Use the Welcome Screen to create a new document

When you first open Illustrator, a Welcome Screen appears in which you can open recent items (projects you worked on earlier, listed on the left side) or create a new document.

1 On the right side of the Welcome pane, you see a list of the sorts of documents that you can create in Illustrator, under “Create New.” Choose “Print Document.” A “New Document” dialog box opens; see Step 2 on the opposite page.

To skip the “New Document” dialog box and open a document using whatever document settings are already set up, Option-click (PC: Alt-click) the “Print Document” option.

Task 2 Use the File menu to create a new document

1 Choose File > New....

2 In the “New Document” dialog box shown below, make the following settings (most of the settings suggested here are not critical at this point and can be modified later).

• You can name the document, but this does not save the file! In fact, we recommend you leave this field “Untitled” to remind you that you have not yet saved the file to your disk.

• Choose the “New Document Profile” called “Print.” This automatically sets the options shown below, with a letter-sized board, CMYK color mode, and high-resolution raster effects.

• Set the “Number of Artboards” to 1.

Artboards are kind of like drawing boards. A single document can have multiple artboards (up to 100, depending on size). See pages 20–23 to learn important stuff about artboards.

• Click OK. A blank document window opens, ready for some creative genius to start slinging vector paths and shapes around.

But remember to save your file with a name before you do much!

Illustrator’s workspace overview

When you open Illustrator, a default workspace fills the screen, as shown below. In the top-right (circled), you can see that the workspace shown below is “Essentials,” a good place to start. Other preset workspaces include slightly different sets of panels, but you can customize the workspace to suit yourself.

Add panels to the workspace

If a panel you want to use is not included in the current workspace, go to the Window menu and choose it. Panels that are active in the workspace (such as the Layers panel shown below) have checkmarks next to their names in the Window menu. Learn more about panels on the following pages.

The Application bar

The Application bar at the top of the Illustrator window (shown below and on the previous pages) contains a couple of useful items.

The Bridge connection

Click the Go to Bridge icon to open the application called Bridge. We don’t cover Bridge in this book because it’s not essential to learning Illustrator, but keep in mind that it’s a very useful tool that is closely integrated with all of the Adobe Creative suite applications. Bridge is a visual browser and file manager that lets you locate, preview, and organize files, plus much more. You can also get to Bridge from Illustrator’s File menu.

The Arrange Documents menu

Click the Arrange Documents icon to open a panel of arrangement thumbnails. The thumbnails represent different ways to display multiple open documents. The default setting, “Consolidate All” (best in most situations), arranges open documents as tabs across the top of the document window.

The Workspace Switcher options

Click the Workspace Switcher icon to open a menu of workspace presets. Choose any preset, then rearrange the space as you work. For instance, you might choose the “Essentials” preset, then later add other panels to the workspace. To save that customized workspace to use again later, click the Workspace Switcher icon, then choose “Save Workspace....”

The Control panel

The Control panel, shown above, sits on top of the document window. The controls, input fields, pop-up menus, buttons, and options available in the Control panel change depending on the tool you’re using. Keep an eye on the Control panel because it almost always gives you fast and easy access to settings you need, without having to navigate through menus or panels to find the same thing. Once you start drawing, painting, or creating a design, you’ll use this panel more than any other.

The Control panel menu

Click the small menu icon on the far-right side of the Control panel (shown circled) to open the Control panel menu. At the very top of the menu you can choose to have the Control panel docked to the top (its default position) or to the bottom of your window.

The menu also contains a list of items that can be included in the Control panel; specific items appear when specific tools are used. If, for some reason, you decide you want to hide any of these items, just click them in the list to remove the item’s checkmark. If you decide to show the item again, open this menu and click the item name.

To tear off the Control panel and float it anywhere on the screen: Press on the dotted finger grip located on the far-left side of the Control panel (shown below), then drag the panel away from its current position to anywhere on the screen.

To put the Control panel back, drag it to the top of the screen until a blue bar appears, then release. The panel snaps to the blue bar position.

The Tools panel

The Tools panel, usually located on the left side of the document window, contains all the tools you’ll need. Or, to be more precise, the Tools panel contains gobs more tools than you’ll ever need for any project. Or lifetime.

The most useful and most commonly used tools are explained in upcoming exercises, but some tools are not within the scope of this book, such as Graph tools, Perspective Drawing tools, and 3D tools.

How to select hidden tools

A tiny black triangle in the lower-right corner of a tool icon indicates there are even more tools that are grouped with this icon, but they are hidden. To show the hidden tools, press (don’t click) on the tool icon, slide the pointer over one of the hidden tools (still pressing), then let go of the mouse or trackpad button.

You can also cycle through the hidden tools: hold down the Option key (PC: Alt key) as you click a tool icon. Each click reveals and selects the next hidden tool.

Task 3 Create a floating panel of the tools in a group

1 Press on a tool icon, then slide the pointer (while still pressing) to the right edge of the hidden tools flyout menu.

2 When the right edge of the hidden tools menu (the tearoff strip, as shown below) turns dark, let go. A floating Tools panel replaces the flyout panel.

3 Drag the title bar of the floating panel to move it.

4 To close the floating panel, just click the red button.

The Fill and Stroke color attributes

When you start creating objects, you’ll be using the Fill and Stroke options constantly to put color inside objects (the fill) or borders around the objects (the stroke), so you want to become familiar with the Fill and Stroke icons in the Tools panel. These icons overlap each other; the one on top is the active attribute that shows the color of the selected object, and it is also the attribute that will get applied when you choose a new color, as explained below.

To choose a new color for selected objects (or objects you are about to create), double-click the Fill color icon or the Stroke color icon to make it active and open the Color Picker. Choose a color; click OK. The new color appears in the icon. See Chapter 11 for details on color.

To switch the Fill and Stroke colors, click the tiny double-headed arrow in the upper-right corner of the icons. Or tap the X key.

To reset Fill and Stroke colors to factory default settings (white fill, black stroke), click the teeny icon called out below. Or tap the D key.

The Mode options

The bottom section of the Tools panel provides several mode options. The Color mode options (buttons in the top row), explained in Chapter 11, are to apply color and gradients to artwork. The Drawing mode options (the middle row) switch between Normal mode, Draw Behind, or Draw Inside, as explained in Chapter 6. But you can experiment with the Screen mode options right now:

Task 4 Change the screen mode options

1 Single-click the bottom button in the Tools panel. In the pop-up menu that appears, choose one of the modes to view your project in full screen, with or without menu bars, or back to a normal view.

2 To quickly toggle between screen modes, tap the F key. Try it!

Managing your workspace panels

Illustrator provides lots of panels: the Tools panel, the Control panel, and myriad panels in a vertical dock on the right side of the window. All available panels are listed in the Window menu.

The specific panels that appear in the vertical dock are determined by the workspace layout you choose from the Workspace Switcher in the Control panel (see pages 14 and 15). You can add additional panels to any workspace at any time. Because you will be opening, closing panels, and docking panels constantly, take a few minutes to practice working with them.

Task 5 Learn to control the panels

Knowing how to manage panels makes your workflow more efficient.

1 Add another panel to your workspace: Go to the Window menu and choose the panel you want. It appears as a floating panel (below, left) or it pops out from the dock on the side (below, right).

2 To close a floating panel, click the round button on the upper-left corner of the panel, shown above-left.

To close a docked panel, click the right-pointing double-arrow symbol, shown above-right (I call that the re-dock button).

To reopen a closed panel, choose it from the Window menu again, or single-click an icon in the panel dock.

3 To collapse or expand a floating panel, double-click its title bar.

4 To float a panel that is docked, drag the panel icon out of the vertical dock, then drop it anywhere in the window. Double-click its title bar to expand it.

5 To expand a panel, double-click its title bar.

To further expand a panel and show even more options, click the tiny cycle button on the tab, shown opposite. Each click expands the panel another level, if the panel includes multiple levels.

To instantly expand a panel to its maximum, double-click the dark gray area to the right of the name tab.

6 Create groups of like-minded panels so you can have them easily accessible for projects:

To group a panel to another panel, drag a title bar on top of another panel icon, between docked icons, or into the name tab. Drag the panel until a blue bar appears where you want to drop the panel, then let go.

To ungroup a panel from a group and float it, drag its name tab out of the group, then drop it somewhere else in the window.

Working with artboards

Artboards are similar to pages in other applications, such as InDesign. You can create as many artboards as you need, up to 100, depending on their sizes. Each artboard can be a different size; for instance, you might have a logo design project that includes separate artboards for the logo, the letterhead design, and the business card design, all in one document (as shown below). Or you might want seven variations of the same project open in one file; put each one on a separate artboard.

Each artboard prints as an individual page. They are numbered in the Artboard panel, and you can change their order number (see page 22).

Keep in mind that artboards are not like pages in that every artboard you create in one Illustrator document appears on the screen at the same time. If you have lots of large artboards in one document, you’ll be scrolling a lot.

Because the artboard is the basic surface on which you will be creating your work, it’s a good idea to spend several minutes experimenting with the many mini-tasks on these pages so you feel comfortable working with them.

Task 6 Use the Artboard tool

Select the Artboard tool in the Tools panel to resize, reposition, or rename artboards.

• To resize an artboard: With the Artboard tool, click the artboard you want to resize to make it active. In the Control panel, type the new dimensions you want to use.

• To visually resize an artboard to fit more snugly around existing art, select the Artboard tool, click an artboard to make it active, then drag its handles.

• To rename an artboard, double-click the Artboard tool. In the “Artboard Options” dialog box that appears, rename the artboard, change its size, and modify a few other options if you want.

• To reposition an artboard, with the Artboard tool, drag the artboard to another position on the canvas.

Task 7 Create more artboards

As you saw in Tasks 1 and 2, the “New Document” dialog box lets you specify the number of artboards. To create one or more additional artboards at any time, experiment with the following:

• Choose the Artboard tool from the Tools panel, then drag on the canvas to create the size and shape artboard you want.

• With the Artboard tool, Option-drag (PC: Alt-drag) an existing artboard on the canvas to create a copy.

• Double-click the Artboard tool to open the “Artboard Options” dialog box. Select an artboard from the “Preset” pop-up menu.

Task 8 Use the Artboards panel

The Artboards panel shows a list of all artboards in the document. Try each of these tasks:

• To rearrange the artboards numerically (although this won’t change their positions on the canvas), drag items in the list up or down.

• To delete an artboard, select an artboard name in the list, then click the Trash icon in the lower-right corner.

• To create a new artboard, click the “New Artboard” icon at the bottom of the panel.

• To open the “Artboard Options” dialog box for a specific artboard, click the document icon to the right of the artboard name.

• To access the commands and options shown in the menu below, click the Artboard panel menu (in the panel’s top-right corner).

Task 9 Select the artboard you want

You need to select the artboard to alter it or work on it. Try each of these methods for selecting the board.

• In the document window, scroll to the artboard you want.

• Open the Artboards panel, then single-click the name you want to use.

• To fill the document window with a specific artboard, double-click its name in the Artboards panel list.

• Open the Navigator panel (Window > Navigator) and single-click an artboard in that panel.

• Click the artboard number in the status bar (in the lower-left corner of the document window). From the pop-up menu (shown below), select the artboard you want.

Task 10 Hide or show artboards

You can hide artboards and still work as usual—you just won’t see the gray canvas. This doesn’t hide any art—all the art from all the artboards will appear to be on a seamless white background. Choose View > Hide Artboards; to restore them, choose View > Show Artboards.

Task 11 Save an artboard as a separate file

During a project, you may want to save one or more artboards as a separate file. That’s easy to do.

1 Choose File > Save As... (or choose File > Save a Copy...).

2 In the “Save As” dialog box, give the file a new name and choose where to save it. From the Format pop-up menu, choose “Adobe Illustrator (ai).” Click OK.

3 In the “Illustrator Options” dialog box that appears (below), check the box to “Save each artboard to a separate file.”

4 Choose “All,” or choose “Range” to specify certain artboards to save. Use a hyphen or commas to specify the range; e.g., 1-3 or 1,4,5,7.

Artboard rulers vs Global rulers

To show rulers in the document window, choose View > Rulers > Show Rulers. There are two kinds of rulers in Illustrator: artboard and global.

A global ruler stretches across all artboards. Its origin point is the top-left corner of the first artboard on the left. To change the global ruler origin point, drag crosshairs from the top-left corner of the rulers to a point where you want the ruler origin point to start.

To change to artboard rulers, choose View > Rulers > Change to Artboard Rulers. The origin point of an artboard ruler is the top-left corner of the currently active artboard. Click anywhere in an artboard to reset the artboard ruler origin point to that artboard.

Guides to guide you

Guides are indispensable during Nepal treks, past-life regressions, and Illustrator projects. In Illustrator, you can create horizontal or vertical non-printing guides with which to align objects. You can also turn custom art into non-printing, snapable guides (very handy when horizontal and vertical guides just don’t cut it). And there are Smart Guides that appear only when you need them.

Task 12 Create guides

1 To create guides, first show the rulers (see the previous page).

2 Position the pointer on one of the rulers (the vertical ruler on the left side of the document or the horizontal ruler across the top of the window), then press-and-drag into the artboard area.

A guide line drags out of the ruler and into the document. Release the mouse button when the guide is positioned where you want it.

3 To move a guide, get the black Selection tool (the black arrow), then press-and-drag the guide.

4 To delete a guide, select it with the black Selection tool, then hit the Delete key (PC: Backspace key).

5 To lock the guides so you don’t accidentally move them, use the View > Guides menu and choose “Lock Guides” (also use that menu to unlock the guides).

Snap to guides

You can tell objects to snap to guidelines when they get close, which is really handy. Choose View > Snap to Point (if there is a checkmark next to that command, it is on). This setting makes objects snap to both points and guides.

If this snapping action makes it hard to place an object where you want it, choose the setting again to turn it off.

Create custom guides

Horizontal and vertical guides are usually all you need, but occasionally custom guides, such as angles or curves, come in handy in certain drawing projects such as maps or solar sytems.

1 To create custom guides, draw lines with a drawing tool, such as the Line tool (explained in Chapter 4) or the Pen tool (explained in Chapter 5).

2 With the black Selection tool, select the lines.

3 Choose View > Guides > Make. The artwork is converted to guides that are non-printing, and you can snap to them as any other guide.

Be smart, use Smart Guides

When Smart Guides are turned on, temporary green guidelines appear as you move objects, telling you when they are aligned with something else. Smart Guides can point out center alignments, side alignments, and more.

Task 13 Use Smart Guides to align multiple objects

1 Create a new document of any size, or use one that’s already open.

2 Select the Rectangle tool in the Tools panel.

3 Draw three rectangles, as shown below: Press-and-drag diagonally to create the rectangular shapes; let go when done with each shape.

4 Activate Smart Guides, if they’re not already on: Choose View > Smart Guides. (Learn the keyboard shortcut because you’ll be wanting to turn them on and off regularly as you work.)

5 Align the top edges of two rectangles: Drag one of the rectangles until a green Smart Guide appears, indicating the top edge is aligned with another rectangle’s top edge (shown below).

To change the color of Smart Guides, choose Illustrator > Preferences > Smart Guides (PC: Edit > Preferences > Smart Guides). From the “Color” pop-up menu, choose a color.

While you’re in that dialog box, also consider deselecting two of the other options that can create a lot of visual clutter, “Anchor/Path Labels” and “Measurement Labels.” These are the options that create those little green words all over the place.