In most professions, one goes through intense training—intended to help a person develop the ability to act on instinct—where the body learns to act automatically in response to a situation without the need to mentally go through each required step.
Even in everyday living, we’ve learned to adapt to our environment that allows us to perform basic functions without losing focus on the task at hand. Examples are dialing a familiar phone number, or adjusting the radio in your car. I’ve seen teenagers (like my own for example) who can literally unholster their mobile phone, send a text, and reholster the phone faster than Neo can dodge a bullet (all while holding a conversation).
When using Illustrator, you want to get to a point where basic functions become instinct – you do them without thinking about it. That’s a power move. In the title of this article, I referenced ten such moves, but the truth is, I’ve broken these down into ten specific feature areas, encompassing far more than just ten power moves—well over 30 in fact. I list Mac OS keyboard shortcuts, followed by Windows equivalents in square brackets.
If you’re serious about becoming an Illustrator speed demon, learn these power moves. Don’t just read them—practice them again and again. Force yourself to use them—even if it takes longer the first few times you do it. Trust me, you’ll thank me later. In yet another Matrix reference, “What are you waiting for? You’re faster than this. Don’t think you are… know you are…”.
MASTER THE NUDGE
This has nothing to do with your spouse (or your mouse for that matter). In Illustrator, using the arrow keys on your keyboard (up, down, left, right) to move your objects in small increments is called “nudging”. The default increment amount is 1pt (.0139 inches), but you can choose a value more relevant to your task at hand. For example, if you’re working in scale, use a number that is easily divisible. Or use specific amounts, like .0625 inches, so you can tap the arrow key 4 times in quick succession and know you’ve moved the object exactly .25 inch. I’ll often adjust the increment value several times a day, as needed.
Cmd-K [Ctrl-K]: Opens the preferences panel and highlights the keyboard increment field. Just enter a numeric value and hit the Enter key to change it.
Arrow: Nudges selected artwork the amount specified in the Preferences dialog.
Shift-Arrow: Nudges selected artwork 10x the amount specified in the Preferences dialog.
Option-Arrow [Alt-Arrow]: Nudges a copy of the selected artwork the amount specified in the Preferences dialog.
Shift-Option-Arrow [Shift-Alt-Arrow]: Nudges a copy of the selected artwork 10x the amount specified in the Preferences dialog.
ALIGN WITH INTELLIGENCE
With Illustrator CS4, you can snap an object’s boundaries to other objects or guides (previous versions only allowed you to snap your cursor to other objects or guides, requiring you to grab objects by their edges or anchor points). To get this to work, however, you have to have Smart Guides turned on—a feature that many find annoying or too “in your face”. Rather than get rid of it, learn to control it. First, open the Smart Guides preferences panel and uncheck all boxes except for Alignment Guides, then press OK. Now you can use a keyboard shortcut to turn Smart Guides on and off as you need it.
Cmd-U [Ctrl-U]: Toggles Smart Guide behavior on and off.
SELECT FASTER
We probably make use of the Selection tools in Illustrator more than anything else, so it’s important to get familiar with NOT constantly switching between them. Instead, learn to use the shortcuts to make them all behave as one cohesive unit.
V: Selection tool (Solid arrow) — the inverted “V” looks like an arrow.
A: Direct Selection tool (Hollow arrow) — the “A” looks like an arrow with a hollow center.
Rather than constantly switch between the two arrow tools, most power users use the Direct Selection tool most often and use these shortcuts:
Cmd [Ctrl]: Temporarily toggles to Selection tool.
Option [Alt]: Temporarily toggles to Group Selection tool.
On the subject of making selections it can often be easier to select art without using tools at all:
Cmd-A [Ctrl-A]: Select all.
Shift-Cmd-A [Shift-Ctrl-A]: Deselect all.
CHANGE OBJECT ATTRIBUTES
How many times do you apply a color only to realize you adjusted the stroke when you meant the fill? How many times do you just want to get an object back to a white fill and a black stroke? Don’t answer—just learn the power moves:
D: Resets an object’s appearance to white fill, 1pt black stroke.
X: Toggles the focus between Fill and Stroke.
Shift-X: Swaps the colors of an object’s fill and stroke.
/ : Applies the None attribute.
Cmd-/ [Ctrl-/]: Applies a new fill (via the Appearance panel).
Shift-Cmd-/ [Shift-Ctrl-/]: Applies a new stroke (via the Appearance panel).
ADJUST STACKING ORDER
I cringe every time I see someone move their mouse up to the Object menu every time they want to bring an object to the front or send it to the back. Due to the stacking nature of vector graphics, these power moves are essential. While there are four possible settings here, the most important ones to remember are Bring to Front and Send to Back.
Shift-Cmd-] [Shift-Ctrl-]]: Bring to front.
Shift-Cmd-[ [Shift-Ctrl-[]: Send to back.
Cmd-] [Ctrl-]]: Bring forward.
Cmd-[ [Ctrl-[]: Send backward.
LOCK AND LOAD (AND HIDE)
Complex artwork—especially those laden with multiple masks—can make for difficult selections. While the new isolation behavior in Illustrator CS4, which allows you to double click on any object to temporarily lock it and bring it to the top of the stacking order, is brilliant, there are still many times when locking or hiding elements can be useful, especially when spending a lot of time focusing on smaller parts of a larger overall illustration.
Cmd-2 [Ctrl-2]: Lock selected object(s).
Cmd-Option-2 [Ctrl-Alt-2]: Unlock all.
Cmd-3 [Ctrl-3]: Hide selected object(s).
Cmd-Option-3 [Ctrl-Alt-3]: Show all.
Since there’s no way to unlock a specific object, most pros will Unlock all, Shift-click on the object they want unlocked (which deselects it), and then Lock in quick succession. Same applies for Hide/Show.
YUMMY PASTE
Paste was delicious when you were younger, and just because you’ve grown up, it doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy it now. The Paste command in Illustrator places art in the center of your screen, but you can also paste objects in place — either in front or in back. For those who were familiar with FreeHand, Paste in Front is the same as the feature once known as Clone. Paste in Front and Paste in Back are also helpful when you want pasted objects to be placed within groups or masks.
Cmd-V [Ctrl-V]: Paste.
Cmd-F [Ctrl-F]: Paste in front of the copied object.
Cmd-B [Ctrl-B]: Paste behind the copied object.
PAN AND ZOOM
The Zoom tool and the Hand tool should be treated like museum artifacts—they can be looked at, but are not to be touched. Truth be told, those scroll bars along the bottom and right edge of your document are also off-limits. Learn the power moves to quickly navigate within your documents.
Space: Hand tool.
Cmd-Space [Ctrl-Space]: Zoom in.
Cmd-Option-Space [Ctrl-Alt-Space]: Zoom out.
A particular problem one runs into is that when you’re editing text, you can’t press Space to switch to the Hand tool, as doing so will actually add space characters to your text string. In those cases, this secret handshake will give you joy: Press Cmd-Space [Ctrl-Space] to access the Zoom tool, and then release just the Cmd [Ctrl] key, while still holding Space. This will give you the Hand tool. Release to return to editing your text with the Type tool.
Since we’re talking about navigating within documents, these are helpful as well:
Cmd-` [Ctrl-`]: That’s a Tilde, which appears just over your Tab key on US keyboards, and allows you to toggle between open tabbed documents.
EFFECTIVE EFFECTS
You want to quickly add a few drop shadows, but want to make sure they all use the same settings. Sure, you could define a Graphic Style, but that’s too much of a bother, right? Instead, use a quick power move.
Shift-Cmd-E [Shift-Ctrl-E]: Apply last-used effect with the same settings.
Shift-Cmd-Option-E [Shift-Ctrl-Alt-E]: Bring up the dialog box of the last-used effect.
PATHFINDER, RINSE, REPEAT
The Pathfinder functions—specifically Unite (Add), Minus Front (Subtract), and Divide—are used constantly when creating artwork in Illustrator. True, I’m a big fan of the newer Live Paint functionality in Illustrator, but for quick fixes here and there, Pathfinder proves valuable. While there aren’t keyboard shortcuts for the Pathfinder functions (in theory, you could always define an Action for them and apply a shortcut to the Action), there is a power move to re-apply a Pathfinder function—helpful for when you’re performing lots of shape editing—especially since you don’t have to shuttle your cursor between your art and a floating panel.
Cmd-4 [Ctrl-4]: Repeat last-applied Pathfinder function.
WANT MORE?
Want power shortcuts for Photoshop or InDesign? Check out these great titles from Michael Ninness over at Lynda.com: Photoshop CS4 Power Shortcuts, and InDesign CS4 Power Shortcuts.
Got your own favorite power moves to share? Post them in the comments!
Ten Illustrator power moves you MUST know
Illustrator and Dreamweaver Integration - TAKE 2
A while back, I blogged about using Illustrator for web design. Specifically, I wrote about using Illustrator and Dreamweaver together, lamenting about the lack of integration between the two applications. I've even had numerous discussions with the product managers for Dreamweaver over at Adobe about the topic.
To summarize, I questioned the apparent lack of support for moving art quickly from Illustrator into Dreamweaver via Smart Objects. The team kept asking me why I would care to bring vector art into Dreamweaver, and whatever would I do with it once it got there? My response was that I didn't want the vectors - I wanted Dreamweaver to generate pixels a la Smart Objects from the GoLive days.
Boy was I shortsighted. What was I thinking?
Each year, Adobe has their MAX conference. Unfortunately, due to a variety of reasons, I was not able to attend this year's conference in LA. One of the best sessions is something called "MAX SNEAKS" where Adobe shows tasty nuggets of technology from their labs. I'll mention that these aren't usually sneaks like features from the upcoming releases. Rather, the demonstrations are from Adobe's engineering scientists and generally cover things they are "messing with" that are often a while out, if at all. These are rarely polished demos and as I stated, the presenters aren't professional demo masters (of the likes of Greg Rewis or the incredible Jason Levine).
So take a look at this video that someone captured from this year's Adobe MAX Sneaks session -- a demo of technology showing integration between Illustrator and Dreamweaver. If it isn't clear in the video clip below what is happening, I'll spell it out for you: He starts by taking art drawn in Illustrator and copies it to the clipboard. Then he goes into Dreamweaver, selects a DIV and chooses a function called Smart Paste. Dreamweaver then pastes an FXG conversion of the Illustrator art directly into the page. If you aren't familiar with FXG, it's basically a better SVG (you can get more information on the open source FXG spec here). In other words, you draw in Illustrator, copy and paste into Dreamweaver (which converts it to code), and the art displays as vector art in a web browser. What's more, the engineer proceed to actually bind XML data to the chart.
As I mentioned, I think this is probably something that is way way off in the future, but it's still quite incredible. Maybe there's some hope for us all, after all :)
Thanks for the tasty treats Adobe! Can't wait to see the day when features like this come to life!
TECHNIQUE: Distribute Art Around a Path
A reader from Poland wrote in that he was trying to recreate the European Union flag - where 12 stars are distributed in a circular pattern. This reader tried several techniques including a blend, but wasn't getting the result he was looking for.
In reality, there are many designs that call for distributing art along a path. And while Illustrator has some nice Align and Distribution tools, and even Smart Guides, they won't help when you're trying to align your objects to something other than a straight line.
Enter the Blend feature - yes - the very same Blend feature that has been in Illustrator since the beginning of time. When the main purpose for blends was to create shading or blends between colors (something we all use Gradients for these days). But blends are more powerful than people think. And more importantly, when you understand what makes a blend tick, you can use it for a variety of purposes -- including distributing art along any path -- even if that path isn't straight.
Distributing art around a circle in Illustrator from Mordy Golding on Vimeo.
Enjoy the video tutorial. You can find additional tutorials on my Vimeo page here. For complete training titles on Illustrator and Flash Catalyst, head on over to Lynda.com.
Summer's over - ready for Spring?
Every professions has its seasons -- and I've always enjoyed the paradox that exists in the world of apparel design and fashion -- when it's cold and snowy out, you're designing the summer fashions, and vice versa. So now that Summer has officially ended, it's only normal to start thinking about spring...
Today, Pantone published their Fashion Color Report for Spring 2010. Click on the image below to download a copy of it.
I was particularly pleased to see that this year, Aurora (a derivative of my favorite color, yellow) made the top 10 list. Here are the words right from Pantone: "Reminiscent of the first glimpse of yellow as the sun begins to rise over the horizon, this shimmering, slightly greenish yellow adds a bold infusion."
Also making the list were Pink Champagne, Tomato Puree, and Eucalyptus. Now it's time to throw a few of these colors at Kuler and see what you can come up with!
Say what? You don't have an Illustrator swatch library for the Pantone Textile Library? You mean you actually look for a color in your Textile book and then try to manually create a new swatch and match it on screen? Are you mad? Run -- don't walk -- to the Adobe Illustrator Exchange and download the Pantone Textile Library today!
Illustrator, the forgotten one
Ask people about the key to their successes and they'll often reply with quips like "I never forgot where I came from" or "I remember what it was like when I grew up", or "I owe those who helped me get started". At the same time, we all know how sometimes, things are seemingly overlooked - where credit is given to one person when maybe someone else was really the driving force behind the success.
Illustrator was Adobe's first shrinkwrap software, and along with PostScript, helped Adobe be a part of what would become an industry-changing event with the advent of Desktop Publishing. Yet as someone who has pretty much spent a lifetime standing by Illustrator, I've always felt that Illustrator somehow was always overshadowed by applications like Photoshop, Flash, or Acrobat. There are obvious reasons for this, and as I get older myself, it's easy to see that the younger kids are "cool" and get all the attention.
However, I always thought that Adobe, as a company, would always recognize the fact that Illustrator played a large part in the success of the company - and that Illustrator still plays a large part of that success today. Well, I was in for a shock when I happened upon a document on Adobe's website today. The document is entitled "Adobe Fast Facts" and can be found on the About Adobe part of the company's website. The document, two pages in length, gives a quick synopsis of the company. In a section labeled "Flagship Products", Illustrator is a no-show. In fact, the Illustrator product isn't mentioned anywhere in the document at all.
Don't get me wrong - if Adobe's intention was to list a few "flagship" products, I'd be fine with that. But included in this list of "flagship" products are Photoshop, InDesign, Premiere Pro, After Effects, Flash, and Dreamweaver. Do you really mean to tell me that Illustrator isn't "flagship" enough to be included in that list? Especially when you consider that Illustrator was influential in those applications being on that list at all? Illustrator is practically in every suite that Adobe sells. That isn't flagship?
I'm just sayin'.
Where's the respect? SIGH.
ASK MORDY: Threaded Type on a Path
Today's question comes in from Donna Tracy:
Is there a way to create text in a circular shape with a text flow like in InDesign text boxes?
This is a great question (and kudos to Donna for also including an image in her email which made it easy to understand what she was asking for), as it exploits one of the strengths of Type on a Path in Illustrator -- which is that Path Text objects can be threaded. If you're unfamiliar with the differences between Point Type and Area Type in Illustrator, refer to this post. Since Illustrator CS, when the newer text engine was introduced, Type on a Path in Illustrator acts like Area Type - and can be threaded just like text frames can be threaded in InDesign.
Rather than try to explain to Donna how to perform the technique she was after, I recorded a quick video, which you can view below. You can also download a full-res version of the video here.
Illustrator Type on Path Tutorial from Mordy Golding on Vimeo.
Learn to make Illustrator go FASTER
One of the most common questions I get about Illustrator revolve around performance. Everyone wants to find any shortcut to make Illustrator run faster. It always reminds me of that famous line from the movie Top Gun, when Maverick and Goose exclaim “I feel the need… the need for speed!”
Of course, there are always things that you can do to speed up your Illustrator experience, and they generally fall into two categories: you can improve speed by using better equipment, and you can improve speed by learning to take advantage of features and techniques. One disclaimer: The information I present here applies specifically to Illustrator, so if you regularly use other applications, they should be taken into account as well when configuring your system.
BETTER HARDWARE
There was a time when Windows outperformed Macintosh when it came to Illustrator. However, the improvements to Mac OS X changed a lot of that over the years, and from my own experience, both platforms perform identically. From an overall perspective however (not related specifically to Illustrator), I still prefer Mac for my own personal work. For those that are interested, I currently use a 15” MacBook Pro with an 2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo and 4GB of 1067 MHz DDR3 RAM.
CPU - Illustrator’s rendering engine is multi-threaded, allowing it to draw to the screen while performing other calculations. However, that’s the extent of Illustrator’s multi-threaded support. As such, a CPU that features multiple cores won’t offer any significant advantage over a 2-core processor. However, you will see the most significant performance increases with Illustrator when you use a CPU with a faster clock speed (a faster bus speed helps too). In other words, if you’re wondering if you should spend money on a faster chip with fewer cores or a slower chip with more cores, go with the faster chip.
Video Cards/GPU - Unlike Photoshop CS4, Illustrator does not specifically access or use the GPU processor on a video card. Hence, a GPU will not have any significant impact on drawing or display performance in Illustrator (although if you use Photoshop enough, you’ll want a GPU and a fast video card anyway).
RAM - Illustrator CS3 and CS4 can leverage a maximum of 2GB of RAM. So loading a computer with 8GB of RAM won’t make Illustrator go any faster. Although keep in mind that RAM is shared, and so having more memory will allow you run more applications simultaneously, but even still, Illustrator itself won’t utilize anything above 2GB of RAM. To get the most performance out of your system, you’ll want to ensure that Illustrator can get its full 2GB, so if you regularly use other apps at the same time of Illustrator, you’ll want a minimum of 4GB of RAM on your system. You’ll also want to get the fastest RAM your system will support. For more information on what kind of RAM your computer supports, refer to your computer manufacturer’s specifications and recommendations.
Hard Drive - The faster of a hard drive you get, the better your performance will be when reading and writing (opening, saving, etc). So going with a 7200 rpm or even a 10,000 rpm drive will make you much happier than a 5400 rpm drive will. On the note of hard drives, disk fragmentation also takes a toll on overall performance. Getting a utility to keep your hard drive in tip-top shape will also ensure a smooth ride when using Illustrator (and any other application for that matter).
Turn off Thumbnail Previews - Those little thumbnails that display a preview of your art in the Appearance and Layers panels take time to render (sometimes significantly). If those thumbnails aren’t important to you, you can turn them off to get better performance. From the Layers panel flyout menu, choose Panel Options, and uncheck all of the options in the Thumbnails section of the dialog. From the Appearance panel flyout menu, choose Hide Thumbnail.
Speed up the Hand tool - If you use the Hand tool a lot to pan around your art, you may experience significant pauses as Illustrator tries to catch up as you move quickly across the screen. For the most control over your screen redraw performance, Launch Illustrator (CS3 or CS4) and open the Units & Display Performance pane of the Preferences Dialog Box and adjust the Hand Tool slider. This specifically addresses how quickly your screen will redraw when you’re panning with the Hand tool. The default setting, Full Quality, will keep your art in high quality display when you’re panning. As you move the slider towards the Faster Updates setting, Illustrator will produce a lower resolution screen display while dragging with the Hand tool, to speed up panning. When you stop dragging and release the mouse, Illustrator will display your art in the usual high-quality setting.
BETTER TECHNIQUE
When I first got into playing golf, I was excited and motivated. I bought a set of golf clubs (at Costco) and I also subscribed to a few golf magazines. However, after a few rounds of golf, I was getting frustrated at how lousy I was playing. I was convinced that my inability to play consistently was simply due to the fact that I was using inferior equipment. Especially after reading all the advertisements and articles in all of my golf magazines, I was convinced that getting a new set of fancy clubs was going to solve all of my problems. Then a friend told me I’d be better off spending my money on a few golf lessons than buying new clubs. It was the best advice I’d ever gotten on the golf course.
Turns out that the equipment you use can only do so much – but if you don’t know the right way to use it, you won’t get very far. More importantly, the gains you can make by learning how to use the equipment properly can far exceed the gains you’d ever see from simply buying new equipment.
Illustrator (and any Adobe application) is no different. Learn how to use the features efficiently, and you’ll see far more performance enhancements. More importantly, when you learn to take advantage of the application itself, any hardware upgrades you make moving forward will be amplified.
Keyboard Shortcuts - The advice is simple, and you already know this, but learning keyboard shortcuts will have the largest impact on how fast you can work in Illustrator. Unfortunately, such a skill comes only with experience. When I’m learning a new application, I “force” myself to learn the shortcuts by doing the following. If I don’t know the keyboard shortcut for something, I go to the menu or tool and see what the shortcut is, but I don’t apply the feature. I then use the keyboard shortcut to apply the function. Sure, it takes me longer to apply the function the first few times, but then I have it committed to memory and at that point, my fingers to the walking while my brain focuses on the creative task at hand.
If the feature you use often doesn’t have a keyboard shortcut, choose Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts and assign one for it. To learn a few cool shortcuts from that dialog, choose Menu Commands and scroll down to the “Other” listings. You can also click the Export Text button to save and print out a laundry list of every keyboard shortcut.
Workspaces - How much time do you waste searching for a panel only to find it’s hidden underneath some other panel, or buried grouped with many other panels? Or how many times do you choose a panel from the Window menu only to realize you just closed it and have to repeat the same command to bring it back? While the newer Adobe user interface was created to help avoid these kinds of things from happening (docked panels don’t overlap each other), many are still used to using floating panels that continue to get in the way.
When your screen gets too messy, reset your workspace. For a speedier experience, take a few moments to set up your screen with the panels you use most often and position them to your liking. Then save a custom workspace, which you can always return too when your screen gets too messy (in my case, that’s usually several times a day).
Symbols - If your artwork contains repeating elements, Symbols are the ultimate timesaver. Not only does it save file size space (resulting in faster open and save times), it allows you to make changes across your entire document in a snap. Keep in mind that symbols can contain anything except linked images, and that symbols can also be nested.
Appearance Panel - Sometimes I feel like a broken record (as a side note, I once made that comment to my kids who gave me blank stares and said "what's a broken record?" and so I had to modify my statement by telling them I feel like a scratched DVD...). The Appearance panel was added in Illustrator 9 and finally got a much-needed facelift and upgrade in CS4. Use it. When you use the Appearance panel, you can add multiple fills and strokes to single objects – allowing you to create effects that would otherwise require the creation of multiple objects. More importantly, the Appearance panel gives you complete control over live effects, which enable you to make changes quickly and easily.
Styles, Styles, Styles - Illustrator features Graphic Styles, Paragraph Styles, and Character Styles. While it certainly takes an extra few seconds to define a style, there are certain types of jobs that can really benefit from them. Especially when you expect to make a lot of changes.
Actions/Scripts - If you find yourself repeating the same steps or techniques often, you should think about recording an action to automate the process. But keep in mind that while Actions are nice, they are somewhat limited in that they don’t support logic (things like if/then statements), and more importantly, not every feature or function in Illustrator is actionable. Scripts are far more powerful, but no one expects you to learn how to write them. Instead, use Google to search for scripts, or you can find a few resources here. Illustrator also ships with a few handy sample scripts, which you can find in your Illustrator application folder.
Adobe posts free public beta of Flash Catalyst
In late 2007, I posted about a new application that Adobe was developing, code-named Thermo, which they previewed at the Adobe MAX conference (in Chicago) that year. At the 2008 Adobe MAX conference (in San Francisco), Adobe revealed the name of this exciting application – Adobe Flash Catalyst – and even released a preview version of the application to Adobe MAX attendees.
Now, you can give Adobe Flash Catalyst a try yourself – it’s available as a free public at Adobe Labs.
What is Flash Catalyst? In short, it’s a design interaction tool built to help designers create interactive Flash content and rich internet applications without having to learn to write computer code. There’s a whole lot more, which I’ll cover in more detail in future posts, but for now, you can do the following:
- Download the free public beta of Adobe Flash Catalyst from Adobe Labs.
- Head to Lynda.com for my newest title, Adobe Flash Catalyst Beta Preview. The entire video title (15 movies comprising of over an hour of video training). The entire training title is FREE to all – no lynda.com subscription is required.
