I’m sure some of you already know about this, but if you don’t, you can save some time while working tabbed documents in Illustrator CS4 and CS5. Press Command (Control on Windows) and the ~ (the tilde key) to switch between open tabbed Illustrator documents. Pretty nifty!

Illustrator is great for creating logos, illustrations, identity packages and much more. After you have created your project in Illustrator it is super simple to save it in PDF format, making it easy for proofing with clients. When proofing projects with clients, you usually don’t want the client to have access to editing or copying the files until you have received payment for the project.

Why Use Security?

I like to add security to my file for proofing purposes. When I send a PDF proof to a client I don’t want them to open up the PDF in their own copy of Illustrator and make changes or start using the project without payment. Adding security will also allow you to add a password to open the file and limit printing and copying capabilities.

Adding Security to Your PDF Files

After you have created you project, go File > Save As and choose Adobe PDF from the Format drop-down menu in the Save As dialog. When the Save Adobe PDF dialog opens, click on the Security link from the vertical menu in the left side of the dialog.

Require a Password to Open Document

When this option is selected, you will be prompted to enter a password to open the PDF document.

Use a Password to Restrict Editing Security and Permissions Password

When this option is selected, you will be prompted to enter a password to edit the document. Any program that can edit a PDF (Illustrator, Acrobat Reader, etc…) will require a password to edit the document.

Printing Allowed

From this pop-up menu, you can specify permissions to allow no printing, low resolution printing, or high resolution printing.

Changes Allowed

Use the Changes Allowed drop-down menu to limit the changes a user can preform on your PDF file.

Copying of Content

Uncheck this option to limit the copying of content from PDF file.

Enable Text Access

If you are limiting the copying of text and other content, you can select this option to allow visually impaired programs access to the text in the PDF.

Enable Plaintext Metadata

Selecting this option will enable the user to copy the metadata from your PDF file

Save as a Preset

Once you have adjusted all your PDF security options, you can easily save a preset by clicking the Save Preset button.

Do You Secure You PDF files?

Securing my PDF files for proofing is a crucial step in my project flow. Do you secure your files or do you use a different approach?

When ever I would install a new version of Illustrator, I would quickly turn off the Smart Guides. They always seemed confusing to me, but after working with Illustrator for a while, I have become reliant on Illustrator’s Smart Guides. If you don’t use Smart Guides, you should! It will help you create cleaner files, speed up productivity, and be more precise when creating artwork in Illustrator.

Smart Guides

When turned on, Smart Guides create a number of onscreen feedback options while you work. As you move around your screen creating and modifying artwork, different smart guides will appear and assist your work. To toggle Smart Guides on and off, go View > Smart Guides (Command + U). Illustrator features six types of smart guides offering onscreen feedback in different ways.

Alignment Guides

Alignment Guides appear when moving your cursor, helping align objects in context while drawing, moving, or editing objects.

Anchor / Path Labels

Anchor / Path Labels identify paths and anchor points as your mouse over them.

Object Highlighting

Object Highlighting identifies original paths, text, or artwork when moused over objects that have live effects or envelopes applied to them.

Measurement Labels

Measurement Labels identify dimensions of objects as you draw or modify them. These labels also identify an anchor point’s x and y coordinates from the object’s original location.

Transform Tools

Transform Tools display guides when you scale, rotate, and shear objects.

Construction Guides

Construction Guides identify similar planes and angles with other objects while you are drawing new shapes. You can specify which angles appear from the pop-up menu in the Smart Guides Preference dialog or you can choose Custom Angles and specify up to six custom angles.

Smart Guides Settings

You don’t have to have all the Smart Guide features turned on all at once, this can sometimes be information overload. To control the features, go Illustrator > Preferences > Smart Guides (Edit > Preferences > Smart Guides for PC). In the Preferences dialog you can activate/deactivate any features, set custom construction angles, change the color of the guides, and adjust the Snapping Tolerance.

Give It Try

If you are not using Smart Guides, now is a great time to start. Think of what kind of Illustrator operations you do a lot, and try to use Smart Guides to aid in your creation. Below are some sample scenarios.

• If you created a lot effects and have to modify the paths later, try Object Highlighting.
• If you create web designs in Illustrator, try Measurement Labels or Alignment Guides for better placement accuracy.
• If you create a lot of icons, try Alignment Guides or Transform Tools to align and construct simple shapes precisely and faster.
• If you work with masks a lot, try Object Highlighting to edit original paths easier.

Do you use Smart Guides already? If so, do you find them useful?

When creating vectors, I sometimes need to delete large areas of artwork. Sometimes I just mask the artwork, but other times I want to get rid of it all together. This is were the Eraser tool comes in handy. Holding down the Option / Alt key with the Eraser tool creates a marquee area and anything within this area will be deleted.

Option / Alt + Eraser Tool

With the Eraser tool (Shift + E) simply hold down the Option / Alt key and draw a marquee over the are you want to be deleted. This works great for large areas that need to be deleted, cleaning up borders of artwork, or creatively subtracting from artwork.

Delete Large Areas and Clean Up Border

When I created the stock vector piece below, I wanted the edges to be nice and clean for anyone downloading it. With The Eraser tool + Option / Alt, it was really easy and quick to deleted the part of the illustration outside of the artboard.

Creative Subtraction and Experiment

In this example, I created a couple of ellipses with the Ellipse tool (L) and used option-erase to subtract part of the ellipses. Then I set the Color Mode to Multiply and placed them over a background rectangle. I added some text and then used option-erase to delete the artwork I didn’t need.

I’m not that great at math, but luckily, Illustrator is. Illustrator uses points, lines, curves, and shapes all based on mathematical equations to create artwork. Even with its complicated computations on the back-end, Illustrator also has some basic mathematical functionality to adjust objects within panels and dialogs.

Tip Details

• Program: Adobe Illustrator CS4 (These functions should work in older versions of Illustrator)
• Difficulty: Beginner

Math Functions

Pretty much any panel or dialog with an numeric field within Illustrator can utilize some basic math functions. These include:

• Add: +

• Subtract: -

• Multiply: *

• Divide: /

This comes in real handy when you need to be exact about measurements and adjustments. These functions are not limited to panels, you can also use these math functions in numeric fields in dialogs like effects and tool adjustments dialogs.

Simply type the symbol of your function after the original value in a numeric field, type the desired number, and press Enter or the Tab key. You can also press Shift and Enter together to make a copy. Look at the examples below to see these math functions in action in different panels.

Add

In this example, I add (+) 3 pt to a square’s stroke from the Stroke panel.

Subtract

In this example, I subtract (-) 80% from a square’s opacity in the Transparency panel.

Multiply

In this example, I multiply (*) the dimensions of a square by 2 from the Transform panel (with the constrain proportions icon active).

Divide

In this example, I divide (/) the gradient angle of a square by 40 degrees.

I love coming across a plugin or script I haven’t used before that really solves a problem for me. I figure if I get frustrated with something in Illustrator, there is probably someone else out there that has the same problem. A recent frustration of mine was selecting Effects in Illustrator. Luckily I stumbled across the Select Effects Plugin from Worker 72a.

The Problem

I use Adobe Illustrator Effects and other plugin effects with Illustrator extensively. I probably use a set of effects from the Phantasm CS plugin the most. I use the color editing capabilities of Phantasm CS on almost every illustration I create. When I have an Illustrator document with many paths and objects, I sometimes forget what object I have applied an effect to. This can become frustrating when sending a file to print or delivering the file to someone who doesn’t have the plugins and effects you used to create the piece. Then it is a laborious task to find each individual object with an effect to expand. That is where the Select Effects Plugin comes in handy.

Select Effects Plugin Details

• Creator: Worker 72a
• Price: Single User License(s) $25.00 / Site License $250.00
• Platform: Mac only (sorry Windows!)
• Illustrator Compatibility: CS, CS2, CS3, CS4

Basically the plugin adds several selection options to the Select Menu. Once installed you can see it adds the function to select objects that may cause problems when printing or flattening, including:

• Effects
• Blend Modes other than “Normal”
• Opacity settings less than 100%
• Raster images with alpha (transparency) channel
• Art with Opacity Mask
• All of the above at once

In the example below I created a set of icons for stock art and applied some Hue and Saturation adjustments with the Phantasm CS plugin to some of the objects. After I was done, I would have had to go through all the objects to find where the effect was applied, then expand them. With the Select Effects Plugin, I just simply go Select > Object > Select Transparency & Effects > Effects then expand the color adjustments. Awesome!

Defining Custom Views

First, use the Hand and Zoom tools to adjust your Illustrator document to your desired view. Custom views also works with layer visibility, so toggle the visibility of your layers to you liking. Next, chose View > New View and assign a name to the new view. You can repeat this as many times as needed. After the new view is created, the view will appear at the bottom of the View menu, allowing you to quickly jump to a custom view.

The custom views are saved with the document, so they will be available even after you’ve save and reopen the document.

Below is an example of using custom views in a series of icons I sell on istock. I create all the icons on multiple artboards in one Illustrator document. Continually zooming and adjusting the view from artboard to artboard gets cumbersome, so I use custom views to quickly jump to common views, hiding layers, and a overall view of the icons.

Setting Up Custom View Keyboard Shortcut

To make custom views even more time-saving, you can create a Keyboard Shortcuts for your custom views. To do this, go Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts and chose Menu Commands from the pop-up menu in the Keyboard Shortcuts dialog. From here, scroll down towards the bottom until you get to the View drop-down menu. Now you can set keyboard shortcuts for up to ten custom views. These keyboard shortcuts will apply to any custom views within a document, so you don’t have to define the keyboard shortcuts every time you create a custom view. Check out the Vectips post Custom Keyboard Shortcuts for more info on custom Keyboard Shortcuts.

Step 1

Chose File > Open and navigate to the folder Username/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Adobe Illustrator CS4/New Document Profiles (Mac) or Documents and Settings/User/Application Data/Adobe/Adobe Illustrator CS4 Settings/New Document Profiles (Windows). Here, you can open one of the default document profiles you want to change the default font of (Basic CMYK, Basic RGB, Mobile and Devices, Print, Video and Film, or Web).

Step 2

For this step you will have to open the Character Styles panel by choosing Window > Type > Character Styles. Select the Normal Character Style in the Character Styles panel, choose Basic Character Formats from the panel menu, choose the desired font from the Font Family menu, and press OK.

Step 3

Save and close the file. To use the new template, choose File > New and select the default document profile you changed.

This tip originally appeared in the March/April 2009 issue of Layers: The How-To Magazine for Everything Adobe.

The 3D features in Illustrator come in handy when creating logos, illustrations, and other graphic elements. I’ve found experimenting with different settings within the 3D Options dialogs, can yield some unexpected but welcoming results. When experimenting with the 3D options, sometimes it is frustrating trying to get back to the original settings without closing the dialog. But there is an easy answer!

Reset 3D Options

An extremely quick way to reset the 3D option within a 3D Options dialog, is to press the Option (Alt) key. Once pressed, the Cancel button turns into a Reset button and pressing the button will reset the values to when you first opened the dialog. Not quite an earth shattering tip, but some of you will find this very helpful!

Here is another quick tip when using Multiple Artboards in CS4. When you Select All (Command + A), Illustrator will select all the artwork in every artboard. This is great in some situations, but sometimes you want to select all artwork in an active artboard and not in others. No problem! Simply use the keyboard shortcut Command + Option + A (Mac) or Ctrl + Alt + A (Win)!