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New Tools, Mature App
By Clayton Crooks
Like its predecessor, Adobe Illustrator 10 is striving to become the vector graphics editor of choice for Web developers. While it has always been a good multipurpose program, Adobe clearly considers the Internet an important market. Illustrator 10 integrates better with other Adobe Web-based tools like Atmosphere, LiveMotion, and GoLive. Several new features provide Web developers with enhancements to the already capable drawing and text tools.
Tool Enhancements
Illustrator 10 offers a complete set of tools, many of which were introduced in version 9, for the creation of Web-based graphics. Graphics symbols, slicing options, and exporting enhancements are among the most important of these tools.
The use of graphics symbols is certainly nothing new, and the advantages are obvious in that it keeps files smaller and easier to manage. Illustrator 10 adds several features that turn symbols into an important design tool. In previous versions of Illustrator and most other vector drawing applications, the creation of similar object types has always been a long and strenuous process. For example, if you were creating a sky full of stars, you'd benefit from using symbols. To create such a scene in a traditional manner, you'd have to repeatedly use the copy and paste commands. This step alone would take considerable time. If you wanted the scene to appear even slightly natural, you'd need to manually manipulate the individual pasted objects to add some nonconformity.
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