Illustrator

Adobe Illustrator

This is a big program and there is a lot you can do with it. This will only go over some of the most very basic stuff. We will go over cropping, moving and tiling images. To go over color shifting and lighting you will have to do that on your own. This program is not free for us to use and requires authentication from Dr. Knotts. You will have to access it through Adobe Creative Cloud.

Sart-Up and Saving

You will first have to download the program through Adobe Creative Cloud with Dr. Knotts permission.
Default, there are 3 main fields to work with and the Tool Bar on the top.
- The center main screen we will call "Main Screen"
- The left box we will call "Tool Box"
- The right we will call "Layer Panel"
To load-in a picture, you do this by going to Tool Bar > File > Open and navigating to the picture you desire
To load-in another picture (1)
- First create a new layer: go to Layer Panel > Layers > Menu sprite (a small triple line object) > New Layer... and then follow the prompts
- Now load-in the picture: Tool Bar > File > Open and navigate to the picture you desire
- File will open into a new tab, copy/paste from new tab into the original and close the new tab.
- The order of the layers in Layer Panel > Layers indicates which layers are on top of other.
To load-in another picture; namely a rasterized picture from VMD (2)
- File > Place and follow prompts
The Art Board is the backdrop that will be printed/rendered. Make sure nothing is selected, Layer Panel > Properties > Edit Art Board > Preset: > Fix to Art Board Bounds
To change the units of your work, File > Document Setup > Units. You can also change art board settings here too
Saving your session is intuitive. Just go to File > Save As and follow the prompts
- File formats that maintain Illustrator editing functionality: .ai .eps and .pdf
To Save a picture in the file format you want, File > Export As and follow the prompts
- If you need to save as .png, make sure you select quality 300.
- We typically don't use .png for publications

Selecting/Moving/Editing

The default selection tool (Tool Box > Selection Tool) lets you grab and move any group.
The direct selection tool (Tool Box > Direct Selection Tool) lets you grab portions of a group.
- Click and highlight or shift + click
Fine movement can be done in Layer Panel > Properties. Select the layer/group with Selection Tool. x and y are the position of the layer or group.
- To the left of these coordinates is a 9 dot matrix. The x and y are the coordinates of this dot matrix relative to the square around the selection
Resizing can be done in Layer Panel > Properties. Select the layer/group with Selection Tool. w and h are the width and height of the layer or group.

Cropping or Cutting an immage

Quick cropping can be done in Layer Panel > Properties > Crop Image

Select the layer/group you want to crop with Selection Tool. Must be rectangular.
Navigate to Quick Access in Layer Panel under Properties tab and click Crop Image.
Follow prompts, crop image and select apply.

Other Random Stuff

Align elements by direct selecting the elements then going to Layer Panel > Properties - Align
To view transparent regions, click View > Transparency Grid
To display session ruler, click View > Show Ruler
To change font, font size and other character stuff, select text > Layer Panel > Properties - Character
- For more stuff like super- and sub-scripting, go to same place a above > click the 3-dot "more options" button
To group a bunch of small groups, Select groups > right click > Group
To change the line width on a figure, use direct selection to select the line > Layer Box > Properties - Appearance > Stroke

Some Standards for formatting

For one-column figures, we use a width of 8.5cm
For lines on figures we typically don't use a stroke bigger than 1.5pt
To quickly fix unrecognized fonts go to Type > Resolve Missing Fonts and follow the GUI; Click Find Fonts > Select the font to change to and click Change All
A font that we typically used is Myriad Pro. Its is very similar the Helvetica