Illustrator CS6, vector drawing application from Adobe, is an excellent tool for computer-aided design. Thanks to its amazing and powerful features, you can create original artwork using drawings and images for it. Do not hesitate to make the 100 exercises in this book to discover the thousand and one possibilities hidden in this great program, as advocated by professionals. With this book: Meet the new applications of pattern creation tool enhanced. Discover also improved image tracing tool that now provides clean lines and perfect fit. Apply gradients on strokes to get interesting and striking results. Leverage the revamped interface with optimized panels and other new features that make it more intuitive, efficient and flexible. Enjoy improvements to some effects, such as Gaussian blur, glare and shadows, which are applied much faster now.

1. 14
Discovering the
workspace
ADOBE ILLUSTRATOR CS6 provides a work area and a really ef-
fective user interface to create and edit artwork which may be
destined to be printed as well as published on the internet or on
mobile devices.
1. To begin, open the Start menu, click on the All Programs
directory, locate the folder of Adobe Suite and click on Illus-
trator. 1
2. The application opens and automatically displays its new op-
timized interface 2
with an integrated edition in the layers
names, swatches, brushes, art boards, and other panels direct-
ly in the panels themselves without using intermediary dialog
boxes.
3. The Illustrator CS6 workspace is organized to give the maxi-
mum room to the central area. At the top of the interface, you
can find the Application bar, which is unified in a single area.
There you can find the Adobe Illustrator logo on the left and
you can click on this command to have a look at the options
it contains. 3
At the right you can find the Menu bar, access
to Adobe Bridge, a command designed to organize open docu-
ments, a workspace switcher (which is a very interesting com-
mand and will be discussed in detail in the following exer-
The work spaces of the
various applications of Adobe
Suite look the same as for
the elements such as panels,
bars and menus in order to
facilitate the change from one
to another.
IMPORTANT
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3

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Learning Illustrator CS6 with 100 practical exercises
cise), a search box and the three typical buttons to minimize,
maximize or restore, and close the program window.
4. Below the Menu Bar you can find the area of the control pan-
el which constantly adapts to the selected tool in the Tools
panel which is vertically arranged to the left of the workspace.
To display the tools in a single column, click on the double
cursors at the top left of the panel. 4
5. The vertical dock panel groups are located to the right of the
workspace. To expand or contract them, click on the head of
the double cursor. 5
6. If you do not have any document open on screen, all panels
are displayed in gray. To move from one panel to another,
simply click on their tabs. Illustrator’s interface is fully cus-
tomizable, which means that you can hide and display panels
which interest you the most. To do this, open the Window
menu and click on the option Color. 6
7. The Color panel has disappeared from the interface. As you
work with the program, you will find out which panels you
use the most and the least. To the right of each panel you
can find a button with three horizontal stripes, which opens
the options for each panel. Finish this exercise by contracting
the panels to icons by clicking on the button with a double-
headed cursor. 7
The panel groups have an icon
on their top bar containing a
menu with options to manage
them.
IMPORTANT
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5 6
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3. 16
Customizing the
workspace
THE ILLUSTRATOR CS6 FEATURES a default workspace. However,
if you prefer, you can adapt the program to your way of working
by selecting one of several preset workspaces or by creating your
own customized one.
1. The default workspace of Illustrator CS6 is called Essentials
and can be found on the right side of the application bar.
Click on the cursor of this command to have a look at its
contents. 1
2. Illustrator allows you to modify the workspace to different,
previously established uses such as design, color, typography
etc. As an example, click on the command Painting. 2
3. The workspace changes instantly 3
by adapting to the tools
and the disposition of the bars and panels which are used in
this type of task. Each of the options displays the most appro-
priate and most often used tool in each of the default options.
4. The new workspace displays those panels which are used in
this type of task. The fact that the other panels are not dis-
played does not mean that they cannot be used. Open the
As you save the position
and size of the panels as a
workspace with a name, you
can restore that workspace
even if you move or close a
panel. The names of saved
workspaces appear in the
workspace switcher of the
Application Bar.
IMPORTANT
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Learning Illustrator CS6 with 100 practical exercises
002
Window menu, click on the Appearance panel 4
or click
on the icon in the vertical panel groups (in this case the icon
looks like a sun).
5. Knowledge on how to customize workspaces is a huge advan-
tage, since you can save them in the case that you dont often
use them. To save the current space, expand the field of the
application bar which now displays the word Painting and
click on the command New Workspace. 5
6. The New Workspace dialog box opens, where you need to
enter a name. For example, type in the term painting2 and
press the OK button. 6
7. Note that the field of application bar displays the name of per-
sonal space. In order to show you how you can access a per-
sonalized space, you need to go back to the default Illustrator.
This time, you are accessing it from the Window menu. Open
this menu, click on the Workspace command and select the
option the Essentials.
8. The interface is reorganized and displays the same panels of
the initial configuration. Finally, open the field Workspaces
of the Application bar and check if the personalized space
painting2 appears in the menu. 7
4
The check mark, which precedes the name of the
panels, indicates that they are active on the screen.
5
With the help of the option
Manage Workspaces of the
Window menu or the field
Workspaces of the Application
bar you can rename or delete
customized workspaces.
IMPORTANT
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5. 18
Creating Documents
A DOCUMENT IS THE SPACE in which you can create an artwork.
In Illustrator, you can create documents destined for different ty-
pes of outputs: printing, web, mobile devices, video and film, etc.
1. In this exercise we will show how to create a new document
from scratch, which is based on one of the Illustrator tem-
plates. To begin with, open the File menu and click on the
command New. 1
2. This opens the New Document dialog box, in which you
need to specify the name as well as the document profile ac-
cording to the predicted output. In the Name field, you type
Project 1. 2
3. In the New document profile field, check if the option Print
is selected which involves a series of predetermined charac-
teristics. These characteristics adapt according to the selected
profile. To check this, deploy this field and select, for exam-
ple, the option Web.
4. The fields adapt to the selected profile. Since we want to keep
the default profile, open the same field again and select the
option Print.
1
2
Each document profile includes
preset values for size, color
mode, units, orientation,
transparency, and resolution.
All of them use an artboard by
default.
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Learning Illustrator CS6 with 100 practical exercises
003
En la parte inferior izquierda
del cuadro de diálogo Nuevo
documento se encuentra el
botón Avanzado, que amplía
el cuadro con tres opciones
más: Modo de color, Efectos
de rasterizado y Modo de
previsualización.
En la parte inferior izquierda
del cuadro de diálogo Nuevo
documento se encuentra el
botón Avanzado, que amplía
el cuadro con tres opciones
más: Modo de color, Efectos
de rasterizado y Modo de
previsualización.
5. The field Number of artboards was new in Illustrator CS4.
Artboards represent the regions that can contain printable art-
work of the same document. By default, all new documents
are created with just one artboard. But as you know, you can
choose up to 100 artboards and arrange them in different
ways. In the next exercise, we will talk about the usefulness of
artboards. Keep all options as they are set to default and click
on OK to create the new document.
6. The new blank document opens on the screen. 3
You now
have the opportunity to check the adaptable content of the
options bar, which can be found below the Menu Bar, and
the appearance of the Status Bar at the bottom of the pro-
gram window. The tabbed document view contains a fast and
direct way to move from one document to another. Now we
will create a second document, but this time it will be based
on a template. To carry this out, open the File menu and click
on the command New from Template.
7. The New from Template dialog box opens, in which you
need to select the template you want to use. As you can see,
the program offers a number of templates organized accor-
ding to the topic and type. As an example, double-click on
the folder Blank templates, select the template T-shirt 4
and
click on the button New.
The new document based on the template is loaded into the
workspace of the application and ready to be edited. 5

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