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Company moving to Illustrator. Advice please.

C

ColorCrest

All around shop helper.
yor

yor

New Member
Good news for you, ruckstande, because in the last AI version, if you have to modify one of your multiple items within an AI file - for ex. to change the signs background color or its shape - you will have to modify juste 1 item and the rest of them will be done automatically !
 
kcollinsdesign

kcollinsdesign

Old member
ruckstande said:
I very much agree however Adobe handles client design intents better with regards to copy, gradients, and clipping masks. Corel is just way easier and dare I say precise. I don't think I've ever received an Illustrator file that's ever matched what the dimensions lines say.
Click to expand...
You need to try HotDoor CADtools.
 
S

shoresigns

New Member
It might be worth learning both InDesign and Illustrator, but they can both handle multi-page documents easily (but in different ways).

Here's a quick summary of my workflow if I were doing 100 signs @ 12"x6", with a different word/phrase on each but all in the same font size, and let's say a red border.

Illustrator
  1. New document, 12"x6", 100 artboards, 10 columns, 1 inch spacing. This will open a new document with 100 artboards in a 10x10 grid with 1" spacing between them.
  2. Draw a 10"x4" text box on the first artboard, set up the font and size using the longest word/phrase as an example.
  3. Apply the transform effect twice to the text box, 13" horizontal offset with 9 copies and then 7" offset with 9 copies to copy the text across all 100 artboards. Object > Expand Appearance to flatten the live effect into 100 text boxes. Effects are just live visual effects until you expand them into objects.
  4. Select all the text boxes and Type > Threaded Text > Create. This will link all the text boxes together.
  5. Repeat steps 2–3 for your red border. Put them in a separate layer if you want. No need to expand the live effects if the borders are all going to be identical.
  6. Paste all your text in, make adjustments as needed.
  7. Save As PDF.
InDesign
  1. New document, 12"x6", 100 pages, Facing Pages OFF, Primary Text Frame ON.
  2. Draw your red border on the master page.
  3. Prep your sign texts for copy and pasting by putting each word/phrase/sentence on its own line.
  4. Paste your text into the text frame that's already on page 1. That's your primary text frame and it's already linked through to page 100.
  5. Find and Replace paragraph breaks to page breaks so that the text breaks to the next page at the end of each sign text.
  6. Set your font and font size so that the longest text fits on one page. You can also set the text boxes to centre vertically if needed.
  7. Export to PDF.
I'd say if you know both Illustrator and InDesign well, InDesign is a bit easier for that example.
 
C

ColorCrest

All around shop helper.
shoresigns said:
Here's a quick summary of my workflow if I were doing 100 signs @ 12"x6", with a different word/phrase on each but all in the same font size, and let's say a red border.
Click to expand...

Especially from your example, anyone who is creating much more than single art board or page in their software for making signs might become more familiar with tools that have been available for a very long time…

https://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/using/data-driven-graphics-templates-variables.html

https://helpx.adobe.com/indesign/using/data-merge.html

https://www.adobe.com/products/framemaker.html


Personally, instead of linking data to my graphics software as the provided links instruct, I link graphics to my data software.
 
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B

Bobby H

Arial Sucks.
ruckstande said:
Our company is making a big push to go from Corel to Illustrator. I've been a Corel user for years and am struggling to adapt.
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They had better keep at least one working copy of CorelDRAW around for opening any existing .CDR files you have. Adobe Illustrator is pretty lousy at importing .CDR files. Anyone that has been using CorelDRAW for a substantial amount of time will doubtless have lots and lots of archive files. I have many thousands of them dating back the early 1990's.

I've been using Adobe Illustrator for almost as long as I've been using CorelDRAW. They're both pretty different in how they work. A few third party plug-ins from companies like Hot Door and Astute Graphics can re-create some of the functions we take for granted in CorelDRAW.

As much as I like CorelDRAW for certain tasks, I also prefer Illustrator for other tasks. I'll do a lot of technical design work in CorelDRAW (since it's so much easier and faster to do there). But certain other features are better done in Illustrator. I do a lot of final color work on designs there. If the artwork has gradients, transparency effects or really new typographical effects (like using OpenType Variable fonts) I have to use Illustrator for that. Ultimately the final design is what matters, not loyalty to just one piece of software. Heck, I even use an iPad Pro and some different applications on it to get certain things done.

CorelDRAW and Adobe Illustrator are rival applications. But honestly neither program works as a satisfactory replacement for their rival. They don't overlap each other well enough for one program on its own to be good enough in my opinion.
 
Kaitlin Boisvert

Kaitlin Boisvert

New Member
I made the transition from CorelDraw to Illustrator a few years ago and it wasn't that bad. Illustrator has a lot of the same features Corel had + more. I took a one-on-one training course with a certified Adobe trainer and it helped a lot and it cost about $400 for the two day training, but I highly recommend it!
 
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