Making Good Use of the Appearance Panel

Another amazing Adobe Illustrator feature, which tends to be overlooked, is the Appearance panel. Why is it amazing? Well I'm glad you asked 'cause I'm gonna tell ya. It is simply a great way of consolidating appearances and effects applied to a graphic, or a group of graphics, in a nice neat package that will stay together if moved or resized.

Traditionally, one will create a design in Illustrator by piecing together multiple elements to create a graphic by stacking and grouping. Each element will have a different treatment, color, effect, fill, stroke, etc. The problem here is, if you're not careful when moving, resizing or otherwise editing all or part of a graphic made of multiple elements, you may misalign the graphics. Editing is so much easier using one element or group with multiple appearances applied.

The illustration below displays the word 'appearance' on one text path with multiple appearances applied. If you look at the Appearance panel below you will see multiple fills and strokes applied to this one element. A few of the fills and strokes have effects applied. You can easily grab any of the fills and strokes and adjust the stacking order to change the appearance of the design.

I will get more in-depth with the Appearance Panel in a future posting. In the meantime, if you haven't already done so, try using the Appearance Panel more. It's a great way to work. Loads of fun.

Quickly Converting Outlined Text to Live Text in Acrobat

One of the very cool, but under-utilized features in Adobe Acrobat is Optical Character Recognition (OCR). I've found it very useful, at times, when receiving a PDF or Illustrator file from a print vendor or other source where some copy I need to have live is outlined (vector). If you open the file in Acrobat and run OCR you can convert the vector type into live type, then copy it or save it as a text file. This will also work on text documents which you scan.

Here's how you can do it. Simply open the file in Acrobat Pro (I'm assured this works in Acrobat Reader as well). Go to Document > OCR Text Recognition > Recognize Text Using OCR. There are options you can select by clicking on 'Edit...'. You can switch to a different language, but only select the language of the document. The output style and resolution usually work best at 'Searchable Image' and 600 dpi. Click OK. The OCR will run and convert the text. Select the copy with the text selection tool or export the file as Text (accessible). You can now paste the copy text or open the text file in a text app.

Now one caveat is that the Acrobat OCR is not very good at converting small copy. In those cases you'll want to scale up from the original file by at least 200% or more. Then bring the scaled up type image into Acrobat to run the OCR.

Give it a shot and let me know how it works for you.

Splicing Text Into One Text Path From Multiple Text Paths

Splicing Text Into One Text Path From Multiple Text Paths.

From time to time we are forced to scavenge a PDF for get copy and graphic content. If you do this by opening the PDF in Illustrator, you will see that blocks of text are arranged in multiple text paths. To quickly splice this text into one text path or text box, select all of the text by marqueeing with one of the object selection tools. Then cut or copy the selection. Finally, in a different area of your document, click with the text tool or drag with the text tool to create a text box, then paste. You will now have all of the text in one path or box.

Read through the text to revise any errors, such as no spaces, extra spaces or bad line breaks.

There are other ways of acquiring text from a PDF...which I will cover in a future posting.

Collecting for Output with AppleScript in Adobe Illustrator CS4 & CS5

Collecting for Output with AppleScript in Adobe Illustrator CS4 & CS5

There is a secret little AppleScript that comes with Illustrator CS4 & CS5 that collects linked files. What it doesn't do is collect fonts or put the files in folders or show you any progress bar or completion message. But it is FREE! And it does work. If you use this script you won't need to buy a third party app or plug-in.

To make this script available in your copy of Illustrator, first close Illustrator, then open the following folder on your hard drive (You will need administrative access to your hard drive):

Applications > Adobe Illustrator (CS4 or CS5.1) > Scripting > Sample Scripts > AppleScript > Collect for Output. Copy the 'Collect for Output.scpt' file. Place the copy in: Applications > Adobe Illustrator (CS4 or CS5.1) > Presets > en_US > Scripts. (You can do a standard copy & paste or do an 'Option-Drag & Drop' with two windows open.)

Restart Illustrator. To put the script to work, open an Illustrator file with links. Go to File > Scripts > CollectForOutput. Click 'OK'.

This brings up a dialog box for selecting a location to save. Select your location. You may want to create a new folder by clicking on the 'New Folder' button. Unfortunately, this script doesn't generate its own folder.

Since this script does not provide a progress bar or a completion message, you may want to go the collect location you selected so you can watch the files magically appear as they're collected. You should know the collection is complete after a few moments have passed without more of the linked files appearing. Test the collection to see if was successful by opening the collected Illustrator file and checking the links.

Smart Objects, Dumb Links

Smart Objects, Dumb Links.

The Vector Smart Object feature in Photoshop has been a godsend to many designers. It provides a brilliant use a graphic elements in a clean compact resourceful manner. It's great having a file that you can link into your PSD that holds many hi-res elements in one nice cleanly packaged layer. But keep in mind what that Vector Smart Object contains, such as more linked files.

On occasion, the Illustrator file that you have linked into your PSD file may contain linked files of it's own. You may then have that PSD containing the Vector Smart Object linked to another Illustrator file. If you package up your job without collecting the links from that Vector Smart Object Illustrator file, that Illustrator file cannot be edited. This may be what you want...to ensure no one can change your design after it leaves your hands. In that case you should rasterize the Vector Smart Object in the PSD to prevent editing.

But if you want to ensure full editing capabilities for clients, vendors or the next designer who gets your file, remember to find all linked files and package them with the job.

Unfortunately, at this point, there are no tools that collect links automatically within Vector Smart Objects. But you can open that Vector Smart Object in Illustrator and use various collection tools, such as Art Files, Scoop or others. If you have the latest Illustrator CS6, the packaging tool is built in. Finally!

Outline Your Strokes, Expand Your Effects Before Release

Outline Your Strokes, Expand Your Effects Before Release.

In Adobe Illustrator, when you have vector objects with strokes & effects, it's very easy to end up with some undesirable results when scaling the object. If you scale an object using the Scale tool, your strokes and effects will not scale if you do not have 'Scale Strokes & Effects' selected under the General tab in the 'Preferences' dialog. The same goes for using the scaling dialog box without having the 'Scale Strokes & Effects' option selected at the bottom of the dialog.

This is all pretty standard stuff and under your control while the file stays with you. But if you release the file to a client or vendor, there is no guaranteeing that they will have the Scale Strokes & Effects options selected if they attempt to scale the object.

To avoid nasty changes to your beautiful graphics after they have left your hands, simply outline the strokes and expand the effects. Outlining Strokes can be done under the Object menu in the Path submenu. You should also unite the object using the Pathfinder dialog to create one nice clean object. Unite is the first icon at the left in the top row.

Expanding effects can be accomplished under the Object menu by selecting Expand Appearance.

Getting Prettier Prints Out of Your Large Format Printer

Getting Prettier Prints Out of Your Large Format Printer.

So you've worked long and hard creating a lush vibrant colorful design that you need to print to your large format printer or that you need to send to a service bureau for large format printing. But when you see your print, it's flat, dull and plane. Why? Most likely you have sent a CMYK file to the large format printer.

All or most large format printers are multi-color printers. They contain anywhere from 6 to 12 separate ink cartridges. The colors are usually something like Cyan, Photo Cyan, Magenta, Photo Magenta, Yellow, Black, Matte Black, Red, Green. Blue, Gray, Photo Gray.

CMYK has a limited color gamut compared to RGB. The larger color gamut of RGB gives you more options for a lush vibrant print. So you should send your file to the large format printer as an RGB file. Ideally, you'd want to work from the start in RGB for large format output. That way you don't get any nasty color changes if you convert from CMYK to RGB prior to large format printing.

CMYK & Spot Colors Living in Perfect Harmony

CMYK & Spot Colors Living in Perfect Harmony.

Why do those annoying ghosted shapes appear in your color prints on a laser or ink jet printers? This happens because your printer is trying it's best to interpret spot colors to a CMYK color space. But you also have CMYK in your primary layout file along with the CMYK of your linked files.

To get rid of those ghosted shapes you need to change a setting in your Print dialog. Select the 'Output' option in the Print dialog, then check the 'Convert All Spot Colors to Process' option. This will convert your spots to CMYK before they get to the printer. Then the spots and CMYK colors will live happily everafter.

Conversley, you can temporarily change your spot colors to process in your Color Swatch panel. This will take care of the conversion to CMYK before you open the Print dialog. But you'll need to change those swatches back to spots before saving the file. The 'Convert All Spot Colors to Process' option in the Print dialog is a bit more seamless.

Hey Dude, Where's My White!

Hey Dude, Where's My White!

You know those annoying times when your white mysteriously disappears from your prints and PDFs generated from Adobe Illustrator? This happens when the white element is programmed to 'overprint'. You see this a lot if you work with files you receive from a print vendor. Since the print whites on press are actual white inks, they need to have the white element programmed to overprint in the digital mechanic so that a white separation plate is generated.

To easily solve this problem in your Illustrator file, just select the white element then open the 'Attributes' panel and uncheck both the 'Overprint Fill' and 'Overprint Stroke' options. To view on screen before printing or PDFing, select the 'Separations Preview' panel and check the 'Overprint Preview' option. This will display any elements set to overprint in the file. If you see your white elements in this view, they will print correctly. This will also show you how the file will look printed to any of your local printers.

When You Think You're Done, You're Not Done

When You Think You're Done, You're Not Done.

This tip is not a technical tip, it's a generally working practice tip. I have a rule for myself that goes - "When I tell myself I'm finished, I tell myself that I'm NOT finished." I will then print out what I've done and read through it proofing everything I've done. I will also review the digital file to make sure things are structured correctly. I will always catch a few things that need revising.

Try to add this practice into your work repertoire and it will make the proofing tasks for your other team members a little more pleasurable as well as making the project and production process run a little more smoothly.