Illustrator Basic-Intermediate

Desktop publishers, graphic designers and aspiring digital artists.

Basic computer literacy.

Getting to know the Workspace

• Choosing a workspace

• Opening a file

• The document window

• Using Artboards

• Navigating multiple artboards

• Using the new Artboards panel

• Creating New Artboards

• Switching screen modes

• Changing your view

• Preview versus Outlines

• Zooming and scrolling

• Scrolling with the Hand tool

• Changing views with the Navigator panel

• The Tools panel

• Using tools and panels

• The Control panel

• Moving the Control panel

• Panel groups and the dock

• Custom workspaces

• Saving workspaces

• Using the Manage Workspaces dialog box

Illustrator Essentials

• Using the shape tools

• Repositioning and visually resizing the rectangle

• Finding or changing the shape’s dimensions using the Transform panel

• Rotating and shearing using the Transform panel

• Constraining a shape

• Entering exact dimensions

• Selecting artwork

• Helpful keyboard shortcuts for selections

• The selection tools

• Using shape and transform tools to create artwork

• Using the transform tools

• Adding a fill color

• Viewing in Outline view

• Using layers when building an illustration

• Creating a new blank layer

• Cutting and pasting objects

• Moving objects from one layer to another

Adding Color

• Basics of the Appearance panel

• Changing colors

• Adding Effects

• Creating a colorful illustration

• Using Live Paint

• Adding a symbol to your artwork

• Expanding the symbol

• Saving swatches

• What is a Global Color?

• Selecting the Same color

• Saving a set of colors as a group

• Creating a color group from selected colors

• Using the Color panel

• Adding Pantone colors

Working with the Drawing Tools

• Working with the Pen tool

• Drawing straight lines

• Drawing curved lines

• Drawing hinged curves

• Drawing curved lines to straight lines

• Drawing straight lines to curved lines

• Shape Tools

• Using the Eraser tool

• Editing existing paths

• Adding and removing points

• Cutting and joining paths

• Working with Live Trace

• Expanding Live Traced artwork

• Working with Live Paint

• Combining shapes using the new Shape Builder tool

• Subtracting with the Shape Builder tool

Working with Text

• Formatting type

• Paragraph formatting

• Formatting imported type

• Paragraph and character styles

• Text on a path

• Warping text

• Text in a shape

• Creating outlines

• Check spelling

• Find and Replace

Working with Symbols

• Cleaning out the symbol library

• Creating symbols

• Editing symbols

• Importing a symbol library

• Using the symbol sprayer tools

• Editing nested symbols

• Replacing symbols 

Saving and Exporting

• Saving using the AI file format

• Saving an illustration with layers

• Saving a layered PDF

• Integration with other applications

• Saving as EPS

• Save for Web

Whats New

• Getting into perspective

• Defining the grid

• Changing the plane

• Using the Perspective Selection tool

• Creating shapes with the

• Shape Builder tool

• To combine shapes

• To delete shapes

• To divide overlapping shapes

• New Brush Controls

• Advanced drawing controls

• Artboard panel

• Touch Type Tool

• Images in Brushes

• Font Search

• Font Sync

• Multiple-file place

• CSS Extraction

• Colour Sync

• Area and Point Type Converion

• File packaging

• On-art free transform