If you use 1 artboard and have it big enough, with page tiling set as you want it, can you do something with multiple artboards that you couldn't do before? For just a couple of obvious things, multiple Artboards can be different sizes and can be freely re-arranged. Your blanket insults of anyone who favors this long-needed feature (and whom also happens to have enjoyed its benefits in FreeHand) just displays your own ignorance of the issue. Prior to CS4, Illustrator was the only drawing program among its long-time competitors incapable of page 2. It was a ridiculous limitation. JET ... View more

George, As you have discovered, Illustrator does not provide any decent means by which to cut multiple open unfilled paths without their becoming outlined. The only tool that can do it is the inaccuate Eraser tool. But it can't be told to follow a path; it is limited to either cutting a straight swath, or to the "path" you draw in inaccurate "free hand" mode. In both cases, it always cuts a swath (is incapable of cutting a zero-width swath). In both cases, it can unpredictably alter the shapes of the remaining portions. The tedious LivePaint toy doesn't help in many-instance situations like this. Other oft-cited workarounds such as applying and then expanding clipping paths or opacity masks results in outlined strokes. The only command in Illustrator that can correctly cut multiple open unfilled paths is the poorly-named Outline Pathfinder. But it has these poorly-designed behaviors: * It leaves all the unwanted deadwood in place. * It cuts the "cutting path" as well, and leaves its resulting segments in place. * It removes all pre-existing strokes and fills. So that preempts potential workarounds such as using a different color or stroke weight for the cutting paths to facilitating selection and deletion after-the-fact. Nor do object names or notes pre-applied to the cutting path survive the Pathfinder operation. The obvious need for a decent, straightforward path-cutting capability is one of several areas in which Illustrator feigns "sophistication" with a dizzying array of illogically-designed tools and commands--yet still fails to provide the most basic needed functionality. I've been complaining about this one (and others) for years. Compare to Corel Draw, with which you can employ any path as a cutting path. When used, the pre-existing strokes/fills are maintained, strokes do not become outlined, and you have the option as to whether the cutting path remains. Given that AI's scripting model does not provide calls for all the commands in the UI (not that it necessarily should--that's supposed to be what Actions is for), and given that it does not provide such prebuilt functions as determining path intersections, you would be left to "do the math" for the path shapes, were you to try to script such a feature. That would be an impractically ambititious task, compared to the relatively modest cost of a competitive side-grade to a program that already provides the needed functionality built-in. Back to the horrible Outline Pathfinder: If you first fill the cutter path, the result of the Outline Pathfinder illogically applies the fill color to the portions of the cut paths that intersected the area of the cutter path. The stroke weight becomes set to zero (not even supposed to be allowed in Illustrator), but is visible and selectable by color. The outboard deadwood has its stroke attributes removed. So in some situations, pre-filling the cutter path could be a workaround for selecting and deleting the unwanted outboard deadwood. Unfortunately, the resulting segments of the cutter path itself also receives the same stroke color and weight as the "keeper" content, so you are still left with the problem of no way to differentiate the cutter path remnants for selection and deletion. JET ... View more

No. JET ... View more

Given that radar or sweep grads are common in other drawing programs, it's silly to have to resort to this, but... JET ... View more

Depends on what you mean by "drawing to scale." Drawing the piece of land and the house to the same scale is simple. Maintaining the relative size of the two objects to each other is also simple; just scale them both at the same time. Illustrator is extremely limited, though, regarding the specific scales you can draw to. Its rulers can be set to Points, Picas, Inches, Millimeters, Centemeters, and the ill-conceived "Pixels" (same thing as Points). It provides no multiplier settings for ratios other than 1:1. So if your drawing scale is anything other than those measures, you have to do the math in your head, tediously enter multiplication factors in measure dialogs, etc. Rabid Illustrator devotees will defend this program's archaic, decades-old limitations and missing features with absurd devotion. So whenever this common question arises, someone here trots out the ridiculous argument that "Illustrator isn't for technical drawing--get a CAD program." Soon, someone will be along to suggest purchasing a third-party plug-in that costs half again what you paid for Illustrator, just to gain this common functionality. Fact is, you're better off doing this in any drawing program that provides user-defined drawing scales. That doesn't require a CAD program. It only requires most any general-purpose drawing program, including FreeHand, Draw, Canvas, Xara Xtreme...even the drawing module of OpenOffice. You'd probably want to put a few simple dimension lines on the drawing too, right? Illustrator doesn't do that, either. JET ... View more

Think of file types as falling into two general categories: "application-native formats" and "exchange formats". Generally speaking, an application-native format is designed to be understood only by the software that creates it. It contains all the code that the creating program needs to edit the file with nothing being lost between work sessions. For example, a FileMaker Pro file can only be opened with FileMaker Pro. Generally speaking, an exchange format is one intended for multiple applications to be able to open. It's a way to get content created by one program into another program. For example, FileMaker Pro can export the content of its files (.fm7) into several exchange formats (ex: .tab), so that some other database program (ex: MS Access) can import it. That's "generally-speaking". In reality, the makers of a program may consider it advantageous to provide an import and/or export filter that can read and/or write a competing program's native format. For example, FileMaker Pro can export its content directly to a MS Excel file (.xls). So, generally-speaking, .aiis Illustrator's native file format; .eps is an exchange format for passing around PostScript content between programs. The following elaborates: AI (.ai): Adobe Illustrator This is the application-native file format for Adobe Illustrator. It has different versions, because capabilities of the program change over the development years. As noted above, an application-native format is intended for use by the creating application. So an application-specific format has no "responsibility", so-to-speak, for compatibility with some other (often competing) program. Illustrator is, at its core, a PostScript interpreter. It's internal language is PostScript. So it's not all that difficult for other programs that do pretty much the same thing (FreeHand, CorelDraw, Canvas, Xara, etc.) to write an import filter to convert the content of a native .ai file into objects which are native to the importing program--and just throw away any Illustrator-specific stuff it doesn't understand. The simple fact that of Illustrator's predominance makes it desirable for a competitor to do so. Often, therefore, competing programs are able to "open" (although this should really be called "import") .ai files "directly" (without conversion to an exchange format). It should be pointed out, this works the other way 'round, too: For example, Illustrator can "open" (more correctly, import) FreeHand and CorelDraw files. Something is almost always lost in such "opens" (imports), and such features almost always lag a version or two behind that of the originating program. EPS (.eps): Encapsulated PostScript The operative word is "Encapsulated". Think "delivered in a sealed box". This is an "exchange" format, not necessarily associated with one specific graphics program. Originally, it was a mechanism by which other programs that don't understand PostScript to at least be able to "place" or "insert" (include) PostScript files and pass them along to the printer. An EPS file "dumbs down" the code of the objects it contains to the minimum constructs which a PostScript printer needs to understand in order to render it. It "wraps" that content between an EPS "header" and "footer". The "header" may (or may not) contain a low-res raster image which can be used as an on-screen representation of the content. For example: Word is not a PostScript program. But it can "insert" an EPS file, make a space for it on the Word page, and display the low-res raster image (if any) in that space. Word doesn't know didly about the content of the "sealed box", and doesn't have to. When the Word document is printed, Word just sends the "sealed box" along in the print stream. If the printer is a PostScript printer, it sees the "sealed box", opens it, and interprets its content. If the printer also doesn't know didly about PostScript, it just prints the low-res raster image (and the print looks like crap). EPS was/is also used for exchange between different PostScript programs. For example, PageMaker was also a PostScript program. But that doesn't mean it could actually draw or understand the PostScript code for all the various PostScript objects created by, say, Illustrator or FreeHand. So it would also import an EPS exported from Illustrator or FreeHand, make a space for it on the PageMaker page, show the low-res preview, and pass the "sealed box" on to the printer in the print stream. Nowadays, the relatively clean-cut "native format vs. exchange format" distinction has become muddier, due mostly to ill-advised marketing brainstorms on the parts of software vendors. PDF is increasingly used as a better exchange format (most notably in InDesign) for placing non-native artwork on pages as spot graphics. As such, PDF has largely obsoleted EPS. Not all graphics programs, however (for example: earlier versions of QuarkXpress that are still in widespread use), can treat a PDF as a spot graphic, so EPS persists despite its inherent inconveniences. At one time, the marketers at Adobe decided it clever to proclaim that "PDF is now Illustrator's native format." That ill-advised claim was mostly smoke-and-mirrors, and resulted in untold confusion among Adobe's customers. In reality, you can now chose to includean entire and separate PDF version copyof the Illustrator artwork "sealed up" inside the .ai file. At the same time, the PDF format was altered to provide for a "sealed off area" in which Illustrator (or some other program) can include a whole copy of the same content in its native format. So a .ai file may or may not also contain a whole separate copy of itself in PDF format; and a PDF may or may not also contain a whole separate copy of itself in Illustrator's (or some other program's) native format. And users wonder why files have become so needlessly large. Inversely, Macromedia turned smoke-and-mirrors into mirrors-and-smoke by appropriating what should be considered an exchange format (.png) as its own "native" format for Fireworks. A .png file may or may not contain other content in a "sealed off area" within the file. So a .png file (a raster image format) may or may not contain a whole copy of itself in native Fireworks objects (including vector shapes). As a result, the recipient of a .png who doesn't open it in Fireworks, doesn't know whether it is a "native" Fireworks document or not. So...for a real answer to your specific problem, you should provide specific information about your intended use of EPS. What program do you intend to deliver it to? JET ... View more

how do you creat multiple pages in illustrator cs3? You don't. Illustrator has been limited to one page per file from its beginning, all the way until its latest version, CS4. As a cumbersome "answer" in earlier viersions, Adobe trotted out ordinary page print tiling as if it were some kind of new concept. 1. In Document Setup, set Illustrator's single page (its so-called "Artboard") to oversize dimensions reflecting multiples of the desired page size width and height. (Ex: for 30 vertically-oriented letter-size pages, make width 8.5*6 and height 11*5.) 2. From the View menu, select Show Page Tiling. 3. Go to the Print dialog, Setup pane. Set the Tiling popup menu to Tile Full Pages. Click Done. JET ... View more

The haltone ruling settings in AI's print dialog are document-specific. So they are stored in the file. But they can, of course, be "ignored" or over-ridden by a particular printer's RIP. One common example: HP PostScript laser printers have an "enhanced resolution" mode (which effectively "overlaps" printer spots to simulate higher-than-actual resolution). If that feature is turned on, it over-rides whatever halftone ruling settings you make. Turn it off, and the printer abides by the custom ruling/angle/shape you enter in the dialog. CorelDraw is not the only drawing program that provides custom halftone settings. FreeHand (which Adobe now owns) provided object-level haftone settings for as long as I can remember. (My use of FreeHand dates back to version 2.0.) Time was, I could: 1. Make object-level settings in FreeHand. 2. "Print" the FH document to a color-separated PDF. 3. Deliver the PDF to a local silkscreen shop. 4. The silkscreen shop would print the PDF to a PostScript laser printer, using nothing but Reader. The output would reflect the object-level halftone settings I had applied. It's been a while since I monkeyed with it, but as I recall I was never able to get even page-level halftone settings to stick in a pre-separated PDF saved/printed from AI. Object-level hafltone settings have been requested in these forums for years. JET ... View more

So you can't control half tone dots in Illustrator. Print dialog>Output pane. Set Mode to Separations (Host based). You can set the halftone ruling, angle, and dot shape for each separation plate. JET ... View more

Illustrator only just recently (CS3, I think) gained a limited ability to split multiple paths at selected anchorPoints. It's as awkwardly-interfaced as most aspects of Illustrator. It's a button in the Control Panel concisely named "Cut Path At Selected Anchor Points" (deep breath). If you don't see the button, it's because you have to select the point(s) you want to split with the (deep breath) Direct Selection Tool (white pointer). Illustrator's Control Panel can't decide if it's tool-based or selection-based, so it often hides the features you need for what you are doing. If you still don't see the button, it's because you logically have all the anchorPoints of the path selected when you want to split all the points of a given path. This illogical abberation is because, despite Illustrator's insistence upon tedious multiple selection tools, it still is not smart enough to understand the difference between a path being selected as an object, as opposed to merely having all its anchorPoints selected. The button does appear, however, in the "opposite" situation: if you "select the segment" (not the points) of a simple 2-point path. In that situation, the button appears, but of course it does nothing. But it's there, in case you want to do nothing. So, as with most things in AI, if you want to cut all the anchorPoints of a single selected path, you have to come up with workarounds: Select the path, then DEselect one anchorPoint. Now the button will appear. Then cut the other anchorPoint. Or, use the workaround that pre-dates the new feature by many years: Use the Select>Object>DirectionHandles command. Then Cut. Then Delete. Then Paste In Front. That completely screwey routine probably needs some explanation: The command says you are selecting "Direction Handles". Elsewhere, Illustrator's interface and documentation pretend that you can select "segments" independently of their anchorPoints. Of course, what really gets copied to the clipboard are individual 2-point paths (each including 2 anchorPoints, 2 handles, and the segment they describe), and that's what you get when you Paste thereafter. But when you do the Cut, the anchorPoints are "left behind", because they ostensibly were "not selected." That's why the Delete command in the workaround, before Paste In Front--to get rid of the stray points that are left behind when you copy them to the clipboard by selecting Cut. (Clear?) Note that when you ostensibly "select the handles", the display is exactly the same as if you "direct selected" one "segment" with the (deep breath) Direct Selection Tool. In such a case, you often can't tell by looking which "segment" is selected. You just have to remember what you clicked or selected and with what tool or command. As for joining multiple paths at once, Illustrator has not got around to that yet. (It only took 20 years to gain the above-described ability to cut multiple selected points.) Workarounds: Use a 3rd-party plug-in. This assumes, of course, you can stomach the principle of paying exta above-and-beyond the bloated price of Illustrator for such basic functionality. Or, use a free script. You are welcome to one or both of mine if you wish. JET_JoinNearest respects pre-existing outboard handles (if any). JET_JoinNearestStraight joins with straight segments. Or, assuming the series of paths together visually describe an enclosed area, you can use the flood-fill feature (LivePaint) to convert the paths to a "LivePaint Group", use the LivePaint Bucket Tool to create a new closed path, then Expand and Ungroup the LivePaint Group to get back to normal basic paths. Welcome to Illustrator. JET ... View more

The only schema I've been able to come up with for that can be seen in my JET_AutofitVertical.jsx script. It incrementally shrinks the textFrame's path, watching for changes in the character count and lines count--a very inefficient way to do it, as well as inaccurate. It would be great if textFrame objects had an "overset" property. It would be far better, of course, if Illustrator simply had better text objects so one didn't have to resort to scripting in order to provide this basic function so common in other programs. JET ... View more

Can't. You're supposed to be able to do the inverse: call a script by using Insert Menu Item in an Action. But it's been broken for four versions now. JET ... View more

> Can't be bothered to enter that minefield just now Then why did you bring it up? Fact is, FreeHand is less visually cluttered than AI. JET ... View more

Nick, > I posted this on the other side of the forum, but told that it would be better suited here as you would be able to help? You are working with an Action (a UI feature), not a script. The question would arguably be appropriate for either forum. Are you aware of the column in the Actions Palette for toggling on/off Action steps dialogs? Have you tried that? If not, list EXACTLY and FULLY the steps in your Action. JET ... View more

Look up SVG in Illustrator's online help. SVG Tiny is a subset of SVG intended for use with mobile devices such as cell phones. It does not support certain constructs, among them clipping masks. The graphic you are working with contains a clipping mask. The alert is simply telling you that the clipping mask will not survive the trip back to SVG Tiny, if you save it in that format. JET ... View more

See the JavaScript Tools Guide CS3 document. Look up ScriptUI and the type parameter of the Window object. JET ... View more

You might care to take a look at the script named JET_VariablesFTROU.jsx, described here. Using the script, I can paste tab-delimited text (exported from FMP or whatever) into an ordinary textframe in AI, then run the script to create datasets in AI's Variables palette, along with bound text objects on the page. JET ... View more

> So what I wanted to do is to force all the paths that were thinner than 0.25 to 0.25. I think I can't do it inside Illustrator. But maybe I'm wrong ? 1. Line Tool: Draw a line. Give it a stroke of .01 pt. 2. Magic Wand Palette: Set Stroke Weight Tolerance to ".24 pt" 3. Magic Wand Tool: Click the line you drew in step 1. Paths with stroke weight of .25 pt or less should be selected. JET ... View more

Alesclandre, Where do you get the notion that functions selectable in the UI are merely high level scripts, and not compiled code? JET ... View more

Alesclandre, I'm not saying your script can't be optimized for better speed; but you are aware, aren't you, that Javascript is a scripting language? As I understand it, it's a general principle that scripts don't run as fast as actual compiled programs would. JET ... View more

Tom is talking about "type paths", which I take to mean text-on-a-path objects. My script workaround for overset textFrames is not written to do anything for text-on-a-path objects. Assuming I am correct about the kind of objects Tom is dealing with, here's the thing: What I will call PathType objects are usually not just straight paths. Their practical reason for existence is to allow text to follow an irregular shape, like labels along the roads in a map. Simply scaling the spine path via script would be easy. But that would wreck the spine paths' being parallel to (for example) the roads of the map. Tom needs to better explain what kind of objects he is dealing with, and what exactly he means by "make longer". JET ... View more

Take a look at David Van Brink's Omino Dialog Maker for ExtendScript. Be sure to thank him for this wonderful contribution. JET ... View more

Jean, in your other thread on the same subject, you said you wanted to: > Open a new document, select a circle on the page and run convert it. There is no circle on the page of a new document. That's why Larry told you to create a new document, draw a circle and then use the script statements he provided you. In the code that Larry provided, (and that you have used in the script in this thread), this line: > var lineRef = activeDocument.pathItems[0]; is referencing the topmost (index 0) pathItem in the document. to reference the topmost (index 0) pathItem of the current selection, change that line to: > var lineRef = activeDocument.selection[0]; JET ... View more

> Mostly, I don't really know what you are talking about here M, Your post seemed to suggest that you thought AI would have to use different curve math from what it uses today, in order to give you the ability to call for a circle in terms of radius, diameter, or circumference. In fact, you stated that with emphasis: > Before anyone gets upset, let me say I KNOW that AI draws circle-shaped and arc-shaped polylines. I was just pointing out that such an improvement would not require anything so ambitious as another curve math. It's jsut an interface thing. (And that's why I pointed out the distinction between definition of a curve and the mere interface for calling it.) As I said, I agree with the request. JET ... View more

Scott, If the swatches were not defined as Global Swatches at the time they were applied to objects, editing them will not cause the objects to update. JET ... View more

M, I agree with the request for a better ellipse tool, and for a proper arc tool instead of the practically useless one AI presently has. (They should both be combined in a single tool, as in FH and Draw.) However: > Before anyone gets upset, let me say I KNOW that AI draws circle-shaped and arc-shaped polylines. Describe exactly what your definition of a "polyline" is. AI, (like FH) neither draws "polylines" nor "circles." It draws Bezier paths. Circular paths are approximated by four Bezier paths. It does not necessarily follow, just because the interface prompts the user for height and width (which I agree is lame) for an ellipse, that the program is using whatever you mean by "polyline" as its drawing method. For example: I have an AI Javascript which lets me call for an ellipse the way a drafter would: in terms of major diameter and "angle". (Ex: a 1" 35 degree ellipse.) That doesn't mean the actual way AI draws the resulting path is any different. (It isn't; it's still just drawing four Beziers.) My Javascript just effectively provides a different interface. Another example is a Javascript that lets one define an equilateral polygon by its side length, instead of its "diameter". Again, there is nothing different about the actual math AI uses to draw the resulting path. Illustrator is still just drawing Bezier curves; I've just injected a multiplication factor. Similarly, AI's ellipse dialog could (and should) also provide different sets of user inputs for specifying the desired ellipse or arc. (Ex: Radius, Arc, start angle, end angle.) Adobe owns FreeHand's better treatment and could similarly replicated it in AI; were it not for AI's still not providing live geometric shape primitives. > A circle is defined as a set of points the same distance from a center point, its radius. Yes, that's the definition of a circle. By that definition, Illustrator couldn't draw one if it wanted to. Your monitor displays a rectangular array of pixles. A printing device renders a set of fixed printer spots. Neither of those conform to the definitive requirements of "a circle." So even programs that do provide the dimensional inputs you desire (ex: Draw, Canvas, FreeHand, CAD programs) effectively draw what I think you are calling a "polyline"--the curve is aproximated by a set of straight line facets which are, in turn, approximated by lighting up the nearest monitor pixels or printer spots or plotter stepper motor increments. (Anyone who has ever imported a DXF into Illustrator has seen this.) > It is manipulated by changing the radius, diameter, circumference, or a combination. Now you're talking about manipulation, not definition. Manipulation is interface. It has nothing to do with whether AI constructs the ellipse and arc with Beziers or with other curve definition math. It's just a matter of what inputs you want to provide the user. > It is not defined by its x,y dimension. Now you're talking about definition again. No, a height value and a width value do not define a circle. But those values can be employed as the user inputs for scaling the results of a math algorithm that generates curves--whether that math is Bezier, or whether it's something else you call "polyline." This is just one example of what I'm taking about when I charge that these so-called "illustration" programs are really mere page design programs. They don't allow the illustrator to think like an illustrator; they tyrannically force the illustrator to reference everything to the vertical and horizontal edges of the page, rather than the construction axes of his actual drawing. But it doesn't have to be that way, just because AI constructs curves by Beziers. JET ... View more