Adobe Illustrator CS5 Project 7 guide

Overview of Adobe Illustrator CS5 workspace

In this guide, you’ll learn how to do the following:
• Work with the Adobe Illustrator CS5 workspace, tools, document windows, and panels.
• Learn how to customize the workspace.
• Change the magnification of the document.
• Navigate through a document by using the pages and navigator panels.

Exploring the workspace

The Illustrator workspace encompasses everything you see when you first open or create a document: the Tools
panel, document window, pasteboard, and panels. You can customize and save the workspace to suit your work style.
For example, you can choose to display only those panels you frequently use, minimize and rearrange panel groups,
resize windows, add additional document windows, and so on.

CS Live
button
Application bar Workspace
switcher

Control panel

Panels

Document
Window

Tools panel

Figure 1 Adobe Illustrator CS5 interface

The default workspace in Illustrator (Figure 1) includes an Application bar at the top of the screen. Within this
Application bar are the Illustrator application icon, main menu (Windows only), application controls, View controls,
and workspace switcher. Below this bar are the Control panel, the Tools panel on the left, panels to the right, and one
or more document windows, which are opened separately.
• The main menu across the top organizes commands under menus.
• The Tools panel contains tools for creating and editing images, artwork, page elements, and so on. Related
tools are grouped together.
• The Control panel displays control options for the currently selected tool.
• Document windows display document pages for files you’re currently working on. Each page in the
document is surrounded by its own artboard, which represents the maximum printable area. Outside the
artboard is the scratch area, on which you can create, edit, and store elements of artwork before moving
them to the artboard. Objects on the scratch area are visible on-screen, but they do not print.

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• Panels help you monitor and modify your work. You can reorganize, group, stack, or dock panels.

Customizing the workspace

By saving the current size and position of panels in the Illustrator interface as a named workspace, you can restore
that workspace even if you move or close a panel. The names of saved workspaces appear in the workspace switcher.

To create a custom workspace:

1. To create a custom workspace, move and manipulate the
interface layout in Illustrator to suit your needs
(Figure 2).
2. From the workspace swticher menu, select Save
Workspace (Figure 3).
The Save Workspace dialog box appears (Figure 4).
3. Name your workspace.
4. Click OK to close the Save Workspace dialog box.

Figure 2 Custom interface layout

Figure 3 Workspace switcher menu

Figure 4 Save Workspace dialog box

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5. Choose Window > Workspace.

Notice that your new workspace now appears at the top
of the Workspace menu.
Even if you make changes, you can return to the
workspace you saved by selecting it from the menu or
from the workspace switcher (Figure 5).
You can restore the saved workspace at any time by
choosing Reset [your named] Workspace from the
workspace switcher menu.

Figure 5 Selecting a saved workspace from the

workspace switcher

Opening a file in Illustrator

You can open files you created in Illustrator as well as files you created in other applications.

To open a file in Illustrator:

1. Start Illustrator.
The Welcome screen appears (Figure 6).
This screen allows you to easily access:
• Recent items
• New documents
• Learning materials for getting started, understanding
new features and resources
• Web link to the Illustrator Exchange community
To view the Welcome screen at any time, select Help >
Welcome Screen.
2. To open an existing Illustrator document, click the Open Figure 6 Illustrator Welcome screen
folder icon under Open A Recent Item, browse to the
location of your file, and click Open.
3. You can also select File > Open from the main menu.

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Creating a new Illustrator document

You can create new Illustrator documents from a new document profile or from a template. Creating a document from
a new document profile gives you a blank document with the selected profile’s default fill and stroke colors, graphic
styles, brushes, symbols, actions, viewing preferences, and other settings.

To create a new Illustrator document:

1. To create a new Illustrator document, select a new
document profile from the Create New list in the
Welcome screen or choose File > New > Document from
the main menu.
The New Document dialog box appears, with all options
set to the optimized values for the selected new document
profile (Figure 7).
2. Change any of the preset values as desired:
• Give your document a new name. Figure 7 New Document dialog box
• Change or customize the document profile.
• Add or delete artboards.
• Modify the document size.
• Choose to have a bleed area around the trimming
edge of the page.
3. Click OK to create the new document (Figure 8).

Paper edge Bleed Artboard

Figure 8 New blank document

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Tools panel overview

The first time you start the application, the Tools panel (Figure 9) appears at the left side of the screen. You can move
the Tools panel by dragging its title bar or the Illustrator icon. You can also show or hide the Tools panel by choosing
Window > Tools.
You use tools in the Tools panel to create, select, and manipulate objects in Illustrator. Some tools have options that
appear when you double-click the tool. These include tools that let you use type and select, paint, draw, sample, edit,
and move images.
You can expand some tools to show hidden tools beneath them. A small triangle at the lower right corner of the tool
icon signals the presence of hidden tools. To see the name of a tool, position the pointer over it.

Figure 9 Overview of the Tools panel

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How to use the Zoom tool to navigate your document

You can zoom in or out of artwork to manipulate fine elements of a layout.

To use the Zoom tool to change the magnification of your document:

1. Open a document, examine the filename at the top of the
document window, and notice the percentage listed at the
end of the filename (Figure 10).
This represents the current enlargement view of the
image, or zoom level.
2. Move the pointer over the Tools panel and hover over the
magnifying-glass icon until a tool tip appears, identifying
the tool by name and providing its keyboard shortcut
(Figure 11).
3. Select the Zoom tool by clicking the Zoom tool button in
the Tools panel or by pressing Z, the keyboard shortcut
for the Zoom tool. Figure 10 Document window with zoom level

4. Click anywhere in the document window.

The image zooms in according to a preset percentage
level, which replaces the previous value in the document
window. The location you clicked when you used the
Zoom tool becomes the center of the enlarged view.
5. Using the Zoom tool, drag a rectangle to enclose a region Figure 11 Tool tip
of the document (Figure 12).
The selection enlarges to fill the entire image window.
6. To zoom out, hold down the Alt key (Windows) or the
Option key (Mac OS) (Figure 13).

Figure 12 Selecting a rectangular region

Figure 13 Zooming out in a document

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How to scroll around a document with the Hand tool

The Hand tool moves a document within the document window. This is useful if you want to see a part of the
document that is currently out of view.

To use the Hand tool:

1. Zoom into an area of your document until some of the
content is out of view (Figure 14).
2. Select the Hand tool from the Tools panel (Figure 15).
You can also press Shift+H.
3. Using the Hand tool, drag to scroll around and view
different parts of the document (Figure 16).

Figure 14 Document window with scroll bars

Hand tool

Figure 15 Tools panel

Figure 16 Using the Hand tool to move around a

document

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How to select an object and work with the Control panel

The Control panel (Window > Control) offers quick access to options, commands, and other panels related to the
current page item or objects you select (this is called contextual). By default, the Control panel is docked to the top of
the document window; however, you can dock it to the bottom of the window, convert it to a floating panel, or hide it
altogether.

To use the Selection tool:

1. With a document open, choose the Selection tool from
the Tools panel (Figure 17), and then select an object in
your document. Selection tool
Notice that the Control panel information reflects such
things as the path color, stroke, and brush options
(Figure 18).
Figure 17 Tools panel
2. Next, choose the Type tool and select a region of text.
The Control panel changes to show options that provide
control over text formatting (Figure 19).

Figure 18 Control panel with a path selected

Figure 19 Control panel with text selected

Navigator panel overview

You use the Navigator panel (Window > Navigator) to quickly change the view of your artwork by using a thumbnail
display. The colored box in the Navigator (called the proxy view area) corresponds to the currently viewable area in
the Illustrator window.

To use the Navigator panel:

1. At the lower-left part of the document window, you can
move from one page to another by using the arrow
controls. Click the forward arrow to go to the next page
and the back arrow to go to the previous page. The arrow
will be dimmed if there is no page to go to. There is also a
pop-up menu that allows you to navigate by page number
(Figure 20).

Figure 20 Using the page number controls

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2. Open the Navigator panel by choosing Window >

Navigator.
3. Locate the slider under the image thumbnail in the
Navigator panel and drag it to the right. (If your
document has only one page, this slider is inactive.)
The image in the image window enlarges.
4. Now drag the slider to the left to reduce the scale of the
image in the image window.
Note: The red rectangular outline represents the portion
of the image that appears in the image window
(Figure 21). When you zoom in until the image window
shows only part of the image, you can drag the red
outline to pan around other areas of the thumbnail image.
This also is an excellent way to verify which part of an Proxy view area
image you’re working on when you work at very high
Zoom out Zoom in
zoom levels. Artwork thumbnail Zoom slider

Figure 21 Navigator panel

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