Adobe Illustrator CS

by Adobe

Product Features

• Cross-media publishing; publish your artwork to any delivery medium you like
• Includes 3D graphics effects, character and paragraph styles, and innovative text composition controls
• Enhanced support for Adobe PDF, expanded print capabilities, faster performance, and more
• Timesaving tools include dynamic data-driven graphics, robust scripting support, and Action Sets
• Create logos, illustrations, packaging, maps, posters, Web graphics, and more

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 9.8 x 7.8 x 2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S. and to APO/FPO addresses. For APO/FPO shipments, please check with the manufacturer regarding warranty and support issues.
• ASIN: B0000DBOCN
• Item model number: 26001360
• Date first available at Amazon.com: September 29, 2003
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,769 in Software (See Top 100 in Software)
  • #80 in Software > Graphics > Illustration

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

Adobe Illustrator CS software is an essential tool for anyone who needs to express ideas visually in print, on the Web, and in any other medium. Powerful new features, including 3D graphics effects, character and paragraph styles, and innovative text composition controls, deliver indispensable design options to help you explore your creative vision. And enhanced support for Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF), expanded print capabilities, faster performance, and tight integration with other Adobe products as well as Microsoft Office make it easier than ever to efficiently publish your artwork anywhere.

New Features:

• Advanced typographical controls: set sophisticated-looking type with new text composition controls, character and paragraph styles, automatic smart quotes and ligatures, and more.
• Enhanced Adobe PDF file creation: create native Adobe PDF files using settings and options consistent with Adobe Acrobat Distiller software.
• Adobe PDF layers support: create separate layers in Adobe PDF files that can be displayed or hidden within Adobe Acrobat 6.0 software to organize your work or to show different design options.
• Faster performance: work more efficiently with faster opening, saving, and printing of files; copying and pasting; and displaying of artwork.
• 3D effects: create custom 3D shapes and type treatments, add lighting, and wrap artwork around shapes for packaging mock-ups.
• Expanded print capabilities: get fast, consistent print results with a streamlined interface and features like Fit to Page, Print Preview, and support for Print settings.
• Tighter Microsoft Office integration: easily export Illustrator graphics in a format optimized to print and display in Microsoft Office applications, such as Word and PowerPoint.
• Save As Template command: reuse designs by saving files as templates that include artboard dimensions, placeholder elements, styles, symbols, layers, and more.
• Professionally designed content: get projects off to a quick start with more than 200 professionally designed templates and over 100 OpenType fonts in addition to clip art and stock photographs--all included free.
• Video tour of new features: learn how to use the new features in Illustrator CS with the special quickstart training video, included free.

Overall Features:

• Industry-standard tools: use the industry-standard software that creative professionals rely on to create logos, illustrations, packaging, maps, posters, Web graphics, and more.
• Industry-standard drawing tools: draw and edit using intuitive tools, such as the Pencil, Smooth, Erase, and Pen tools.
• Integration with your favorite applications: Easily integrate artwork into other Adobe applications, such as Photoshop, InDesign, Acrobat, and After Effects software, as well as Microsoft Office products.
• Advanced typographical controls: set sophisticated-looking type with new text composition controls, character and paragraph styles, automatic smart quotes and ligatures, and more.
• Enhanced Adobe PDF file creation: create native Adobe PDF files using settings and options consistent with Adobe Acrobat Distiller software.
• 3D effects: create custom 3D shapes and type treatments, add lighting, and wrap artwork around shapes for packaging mock-ups.
• Powerful creative tools: give your artwork a unique look with powerful creative tools such as transparency, Scribble Effect, brushes, symbolism, and Gradient Mesh.
• Creative effects: apply a variety of nondestructive effects to your artwork, including envelopes, warps, SVG effects, and Photoshop filters, while enjoying the freedom to edit your original artwork at any time.
• Production automation: work at peak efficiency with timesaving tools like dynamic data-driven graphics, robust scripting support, and Action Sets.
• Cross-media publishing: Publish your artwork to any delivery medium you like, from print and the Web to cell phones, PDAs, dynamic media, and more.

Features for Cross-Media Designers:

• Advanced typographical controls: set sophisticated-looking type with new text composition controls, character and paragraph styles, automatic smart quotes and ligatures, and more.
• Faster performance: work more efficiently with faster opening, saving, and printing of files; copying and pasting; and displaying of artwork.
• 3D effects: create custom 3D shapes and type treatments, add lighting, and wrap artwork around shapes for packaging mock-ups.
• Expanded print capabilities: get fast, consistent print results with a streamlined interface and features like Fit to Page, Print Preview, and support for Print settings.
• Envelopes and live distortion: easily warp, liquify, and distort artwork any way imaginable with envelopes and live distortion tools.
• Character and Paragraph Styles: apply formatting to individual characters, lines of type, or entire paragraphs with a single click using new Character and Paragraph Styles.
• Industry-standard drawing tools: draw and edit using intuitive tools, such as the Pencil, Smooth, Erase, and Pen tools.
• Adobe-standard user interface: move easily between Illustrator and other Adobe products using the familiar Adobe user interface.
• Live effects: apply live effects without affecting the underlying artwork, so you can edit at any time without starting over.
• Unlimited transparency: expand your design options with blending modes and transparency effects similar to those in Adobe Photoshop software.

Features for Web Designers:

• Object-oriented work environment: design for the Web with superb flexibility by using object-oriented drawing tools that enable your graphics to remain completely editable at any time.
• Adobe Photoshop integration: preserve layers, transparency, editable text, slices, and more when moving files between Photoshop and Illustrator.
• Broad Web format support: create graphics for the Web in a variety of standard formats, including SWF export, W3C SVG import and export, and native support for Adobe PDF.
• Pixel Preview: visualize just how your vector artwork will look when rasterized in Web browsers using the Pixel Preview mode.
• Versatile slicing tools: create vector-based slices from objects, groups, or layers. Move or edit an object, group, or layer and any associated slices will update automatically.
• Production automation: work at peak efficiency with timesaving tools like dynamic data-driven graphics, robust scripting support, and Action Sets.
• Save for Web: easily export for the Web using the comprehensive Save for Web dialog box that lets you choose HTML, SWF, GIF, JPEG, and more.
• Support for symbols: keep file sizes small and efficiently manage repeating graphics by using symbols. Instantly update every instance of the symbol when you redefine the original.
• Transparent text effects: expand your typographic options using ghosted text, transparent drop shadows with soft edges, and other effects for transparent text.
• Release to Layers: quickly create animated graphics by blending two objects, using the Release to Layers command, and then exporting the graphic as a SWF file.

Features for Business Communicators:

• Industry-standard tools: use the industry-standard software that creative professionals rely on to create logos, illustrations, packaging, maps, posters, Web graphics, and more.
• Integration with your favorite applications: easily integrate artwork into other Adobe applications, such as Photoshop, InDesign, Acrobat, and After Effects software, as well as Microsoft Office products.
• Flexible creative options: unleash your creativity with fully editable creative options, including 3D design features, envelopes, and live distortion tools.
• Powerful graphing tools: communicate data clearly using powerful graphing tools that make it easy to produce visually compelling charts and graphs.
• Professionally designed content: get projects off to a quick start with more than 200 professionally designed templates and over 100 OpenType fonts in addition to clip art and stock photographs--all included free.
• Enhanced Adobe PDF file creation: create native Adobe PDF files using settings and options consistent with Adobe Acrobat Distiller software.
• Advanced typographical controls: set sophisticated-looking type with new text composition controls, character and paragraph styles, automatic smart quotes and ligatures, and more.
• Vector and raster support: create graphics for any use with full support for vector-based artwork and pixel-based images.
• Character and Paragraph Styles: apply formatting to individual characters, lines of type, or entire paragraphs with a single click using new Character and Paragraph Styles.
• Adobe-standard user interface: move easily between Illustrator and other Adobe products using the familiar Adobe user interface.

Product Description

Adobe Illustrator CS software is an essential tool for anyone who needs to express ideas visually in print, on the Web, and in any other medium. Powerful new features, including 3D graphics effects, character and paragraph styles, and innovative text composition controls, deliver indispensable design options to help you explore your creative vision. And enhanced support for Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF), expanded print capabilities, faster performance, and tight integration with other Adobe products as well as Microsoft Office make it easier than ever to efficiently publish your artwork anywhere.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Prepare to be annoyed!, September 9, 2004

By 

Designer - See all my reviews

This review is from: Adobe Illustrator CS (CD-ROM)

Illustrator is a good program but CS is junk. There are a slight few reasons to use CS over 10 but for those few features you have to deal with the program crashing about 3-5 times a day (and note I work in Illustrator from 9-5). And if that wasn't bad enough most of the time it crashed it while you're trying to save as if to make you as mad as possible. Also you can't save for previous versions which is a serious flaw considering not everyone is dumb enough to shell out the $500 for the CS.

I'm glad that I got to try this out at work where I didn't pay for it and that I still have my Illustrator 10 at home.

I hope Adobe clues in to everyone writing bad reviews and decides to actually check their program before releasing it. Until then SAVE YOUR MONEY!

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars too darn buggy, November 30, 2004

By 

Helen Hostetter (Jamaica Plain, MA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Adobe Illustrator CS (CD-ROM)

I'm normally a big fan of Illustrator, but this new version is much more trouble than it's worth. It doesn't seem like you get all that much more than illustrator 10, and the cost is huge.

My biggest pet peeves:

1) stability - the single most important problem with this program. Where Illustrator 10 was a workhorse, you need to make it a habit to save frequently with Illustrator 11. It crashes frequently and unpredictably. I find myself thinking that "it's not too bad, now that I save every 10 minutes...." and then realize that something is horribly wrong with this program.

2) text - this program simply can't handle large blocks of text in any appropriate fashion. I've used huge images, complex shading, and used some of the new tools to warp groups of vector images , and nothing slows the thing down more than text. It literally takes minutes for me to edit text in the thing sometimes, and it gets worse with image-heavy files. Frustrating. I know that's what InDesign is for, but again, I never had these problems with Illustrator 10.

3) the 3-d tool is a piece of garbage - why is it here? Ugh. This tool really isn't worth it. If you want to use 3-D software, use 3-D software. There are good programs out there that will do all these 3-d functions smoothly and flawlessly. When you try to use this in Illustrator, you get unpredictable, pixelated effects. If you try to use it extensively, you can not only crash Illustrator, but you can sometimes freeze your entire computer. Your effects, especially if you try to map an image on a 3-d object, look pretty pixelated. It's fun to play with if you have too much time on your hands, but don't rely on it. and get ready to crash the program if you use it.

All complaints aside, I've gotta say that warping things with the mesh tool is fun, but again, it adds a lot of processing time to the program. Just be prepared to wait to save, print and load if you use it a lot.

Overall, until Adobe improves stability and text handling, I'd stay away from this. The new features aren't worth the bugginess. If you want further instances of CS problems, go to the Adobe support site for Illustrator, and look up CS crashes. You'll find almost 200 postings from frustrated users, and equally frustrated Adobe tech support folks who can't really help.

34 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Decent Product. HORRIBLE support., March 19, 2004

By 

Eric J. Fridman "ejf302" (Baltimore, MD United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Adobe Illustrator CS (CD-ROM)

This may be one of the better vector graphic programs, but does not appear to have been tested. I will update this review more as I use the program more. But today is day one, and it has one MAJOR bug already.
You know how much Photoshop CS costs. And you know how much Illustrator CS costs.
So imagine buying the full Illustrator CS. You install it. And it will not open ANY JPEG pictures taken by certain SONY DIGITAL CAMERAS. The program just bombs out every time. To work around this bug you have to open the pix in any other program, like Photoshop CS, and resave them. Nor will it load TIFFs from these SONY cameras. But every other program will including Adobe Photoshop. So when I call support, with a product that is only 1 hour old, they want a credit card number in case they decide to charge me $39.
I dunno. I hope these CS products last me a long time. Because I don't think I'll buy more Adobe. They charge way too much money to treat customers like this.