Adobe Illustrator CS (Mac)

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

• 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: B0000DBOC0
• Date first available at Amazon.com: September 29, 2003
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,943 in Software (See Top 100 in Software)
  • #50 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

Illustrator CS makes it easier to reach your creative vision with a full-featured vector graphics package and all the tools you need. Tighter integration with Microsoft Office for easier import/export into office documents, presentation and Websites

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Adobe Illustrator CS for Macintosh, January 23, 2004

By 

Tom Shackle (Anchorage, AK United States) - See all my reviews

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

Adobe's new Illustrator CS brings significant improvements to an already great vector art software. I was quite impressed with Illustrator 10's improvements, and wasn't sure what new features Adobe would put into its next version. Plenty, as it turns out. Here are some new features of Illustrator CS (actually v. 11):

Faster Performance
Illustrator CS is noticeably faster opening, saving, and printing files than its predecessor Illustrator 10. Artwork displays faster, and copying and pasting is speedier.

Expanded Print Capabilities
With Illustrator CS' upgraded print engine you can now achieve fast, consistent, print results with features like Fit to Page, Print Preview, and support for Print settings. These features appear to put Illustrator CS on par with Adobe Acrobat in regard to setting file compression and printing control.

Font Style Display
In its drop-down Font selection menu, Illustrator CS now shows fonts available in your Mac in their actual style. No more guessing how they might look before you select from a list of font names.

Enhanced Adobe PDF file creation
When saving an Illustrator CS document as a PDF file a menu now displays settings and options that are quite similar to Adobe Acrobat Distiller software. This allows making precise adjustments for file compression, adding printer's marks, and setting PDF document security. A convenient feature is that newly created Illustrator PDF's are then auto-launched in Acrobat 6 for immediate review.

Adobe PDF layers support
Similar to PhotoShop, Illustrator lets artwork be created over numerous electronic layers with individual control of the contents contained on each layer. That's not particularly new, however, layered artwork in Illustrator CS saved as a PDF can now be displayed or hidden within Adobe Acrobat 6.0 Professional.

How might this be useful? One example could be that you need to e-mail a drawing to a client showing multiple design options for a building drawn on different layers in Illustrator. The client won't likely have Illustrator, but will have a copy (or can get a free download) of Acrobat Reader 6. With a multi-layer PDF file the client can turn on, or off, layers to display your different design options.

3D Effects
I love this new feature! From 2-D objects and text you can create custom 3-D shapes and type treatments, add lighting, and then wrap artwork around shapes for packaging mock-ups. The new 3-D features incorporate elements of Adobe's long abandoned Dimensions 3.1 which, while promising, was clunky and rather frustrating to use.

Prior to Illustrator CS, I usually created 3-D static objects by first importing a very basic Illustrator EPS drawing into an expensive 3-D animation program. From there I would perform an Extrude (adding depth to the object) or a Lathe (wrapping the EPS drawing around a center line), rotate the object to a desired angle in the XYZ planes, position the artificial light source(s), and then map artwork to the various surfaces to create the finished product. Now I can do all of that in Illustrator CS. Thank you, Adobe! I'll be interested to see how this feature matures in future versions of Illustrator.

Illustrator's 3-D features come with a price, however. Running this program on my 15", 800 Mhz, G4 iMac required patience as each time a 3-D object was moved or resized on the electronic canvas there was a finger-drumming wait for the vector recalculations to complete. Of course faster Macs (especially the G5's) will mean less wait time with Illustrator 3-D objects.

Video Tour Of New Features
Included with Illustrator CS is a very informative CD video tutorial from Total Training featuring well-known software book author and presenter Deke McClelland. He jumps right into explaining the 3-D features of Illustrator CS, followed by tutorials on the program's built-in filters, font features, printing controls, and exports to PDF and Microsoft Office.

Tighter Microsoft Office integration
When you choose "Save for Microsoft Office" under the File Menu, Illustrator CS exports artwork as a PNG file format which makes it optimized to print and display in Microsoft Office products. Frankly, I'm not so impressed with this feature-but it's probably not Adobe's fault.

Of the applications in the Microsoft Office application suite I use PowerPoint the most. Inserting a PNG (or other raster formats) is fine as long as the background in Word, Excel, or PowerPoint is white. In these Microsoft products all pixel-based images display with a white square or rectangular bounding box-no matter the actual shape of the artwork. In PowerPoint you can use Microsoft's "Set Color Transparency" command to make the unwanted white of the bounding box become transparent so the background shows through. Unfortunately, there remains a white "fringing" all around the artwork boundary.

If Illustrator had a vector graphic export format that would be the same as the vector clip art Microsoft provides for use in its Office products, you would really have something. Vector art from Illustrator, brought into MS Office software, could be scaled up or down in size with no change in resolution. Now that would be a great feature. As it currently stands, you can put a piece of vector art into the Microsoft Clip Art Gallery. But when the artwork is inserted the MS application forcibly rasterizes it with some unwanted results.

Save As Template Command
Illustrator CS lets you reuse designs by saving files as templates that include artboard dimensions, styles, symbols, layers, and more. There are also more than 200 professionally designed templates and over 100 OpenType fonts in addition to clip art and stock photographs - all included free on the installation CD.

Adobe states that Illustrator CS for Macintosh requires a PowerPC G3, G4, or G5 CPU, OS X v.10.2 through v.10.3, 192MB of RAM (256MB recommended), and 470MB of available hard-disk space. For this review, Illustrator CS performed on a G4 800 MHz iMac with 1 GB of memory, running OS 10.2.8.

Tom Shackle is a member of the Alaskan Apple Users Group and a freelance media professional