New to Illy - HELP!

[schramm]

What tool do I use that works like Corels Contour tool? I am trying to create an outside boarder which I can cut in a 2nd color but I cannot find anything that works. Stroke does not do it and with corel you can create multiple outlines in different colors with the contour tool with ease but cannot find the same with Illy! Please help!!!

 

[schramm]

Never mind I figured it out. I bought a video about 1 month ago and just referenced it. Man Illy is a killer learning curve! So damn many tools and so much better then Corel Draw X4. I have Adobe CS4 and CS5, quite the investment but worth all the money!

 

[rwinninger]

How did the video tell you to do it?

 

[schramm]

I have a series of videos that I bought on ebay to take me through everything that comes with Adobe Creative Suite.

1. Type your WORD
2. Marquee around the word
3. Create Outlines
4. "Make" Compound Path
5. Create stroke and then choose to put the stroke on inside or outside.
6. Click on "Outline stroke"

If you skip the step of making a compound path the outside boarder does not automatically weld causing over cuts. The video didn't show all these steps but told me the basics that I was missing which was how to make a stroke an outline. These videos were worth the money invested without a doubt!

Before I got the videos I hated Adobe as I was soooo use to Corel and the way it worked with PC that I was convinced that I should just convert back to PC. I love my Mac but it is a big learning curve which takes dedication to set aside what you know about PC and Corel and open your mind to something bigger and better. Three months ago I made the decision to invest $6500 into a new plotter, 27" iMac with all the bells and whistles and Adobe CS4. At first I had buyers remorse about the software but not the Mac or plotter. Now my business is running about 30% faster and I am able to do things which before took a lot of steps. Since we all know time is money I think these things will pay for themselves in about 1 year and my next investment will be a CNC router with 3D capabilities.

 

[The Vector Doctor]

Contour in Illy is called "offset path" in the menu object -> path -> offset path. Though in Illy you can only offset 1 at a time. If you want multiple outlines you can assign multiple outlines/strokes to 1 object in the appearance tab

 

[schramm]

Eric,

Great info!!! Cuts 1/2 the steps and seems to work just as well if not better. Illustrator is so much better in design then any other software I have used and having the full/new version sure makes life easy. Things like arching words and other effects take minimul effort and have fantastic results.

Thanks again