Introduction - Adobe 26001648 - Illustrator CS3 User Manual

Introduction

 Freehand to Illustrator Migration guide
Welcome, and thank you for having made the move or thinking about moving
from Macromedia® FreeHand® to Adobe Illustrator® CS3.
FreeHand is no longer being developed to be compatible with new operating
systems and hardware, or to provide integration with other key design applica-
tions, such as Adobe Photoshop® CS3 and Adobe InDesign® CS3. Your move
to Illustrator is an important step to ensure that you can take advantage of new
technologies and capabilities as they become available.
This guide explains the main differences between the two programs and
introduces you to some of the features that make Illustrator the industry-
standard tool for creating vector graphics for any media. It was written specifi-
cally for FreeHand users like you, to help you transition to Illustrator as quickly
and as smoothly as possible.
Your experience using FreeHand will give you a good foundation for moving
to Illustrator, and the import of FreeHand files has been updated to support
FreeHand MX. If you have been using Adobe Photoshop or Adobe InDesign,
your move will be even easier, because all Adobe graphics applications share
common commands, panels, and keyboard shortcuts.
Illustrator is tightly integrated with all components of Adobe Creative Suite® 3,
and now with Adobe Bridge CS3, it has become easier than ever to manage
and organize files. In Creative Suite 3, the Adobe standard interface has been
updated to be more efficient, and is consistent between Photoshop CS3,
InDesign CS3, Illustrator CS3, and Adobe Flash® CS3 Professional.
The Live Trace and Live Paint features in Illustrator make it easier to get your
sketches onto your artboard as vector graphics, and Live Color presents a new
and exciting environment for exploring color harmonies and interactively
applying color to any selection of objects. Integration with Photoshop, including
the ability to choose layer comps during import and support for Photoshop
filters and effects, opens new horizons for vector graphics. Illustrator also gives
you access to many OpenType® features to help you create beautiful typography.
Illustrator CS3 integrates beautifully with Flash CS3 Professional. Now you
can copy/paste or import your Illustrator artwork into Flash, confident that the
critical elements in your Illustrator artwork are maintained in Flash.
We hope this guide gives you the the basics to explore Illustrator CS3, and
makes your transition from FreeHand a little bit easier.