Adobe illustrator cs4- P18 pps

EXPORTING FILES FROM ILLUSTRATOR 485The Bitmap .bmp Format Bitmaps are raster-based fi les and are often used in older computer applica-tions.. EXPORTING FILES FROM ILLUSTRATOR 487Exporti

Saving and Exporting Artboards

One of the most highly requested features in Illustrator has fi nally arrived in Illustrator CS4—multiple boards (see Chapter 1) And just as you can create single fi les with multiple artboards, so can you save and export fi les with them as well.

art-Choose File > Export, and choose your desired fi le format In the Export dialog box, select Use Artboards

(Figure 14.22), and specify All or a range of artboards to export When Range is selected, Illustrator will export

separate fi les for each artboard specifi ed File names will be appended with a 01, 02, 03, and so on If the Use Artboards option is not selected and your fi le contains multiple artboards, a single fi le will be exported with

the artboards converted to a single, “conjoined” artboard (Figure 14.23).

With the Save and Save As commands, the Use Artboards option is automatically selected for the native Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Illustrator Template, PDF, SVG, and SVGZ fi le formats You have the option of selecting or not selecting the option with the EPS and FXG fi le formats.

EXPORTING FILES FROM ILLUSTRATOR 485

The Bitmap (.bmp) Format

Bitmaps are raster-based fi les and are often used in older computer

applica-tions The bitmap format is also used by some applications for displaying

logos or bar codes

When exporting a bitmap, you can choose one of three different color

models: RGB, Grayscale, or Bitmap Bitmap creates a fi le that contains

only black-and-white pixels (Figure 14.24) Additionally, you can specify

the resolution for your image and choose whether to antialias the art

The Targa (.tga) Format

The Targa fi le format is a raster-based image format used mainly in video

applications For example, you might use the Targa fi le format to add

Illustrator artwork as masks in Adobe Premiere Pro CS4

When exporting a Targa fi le, you can choose one of two color models: RGB

or Grayscale Additionally, you can specify the resolution for your image

and choose whether to antialias the art

The Portable Network Graphic

(.png) Format

The PNG fi le format (pronounced “ping”) was originally formed as an open

standard format to replace the need for the GIF image fi le format, because

of legal complications with those who developed the compression

technol-ogy used in the GIF format

Figure 14.24 Many

applica-tions (including Illustrator and QuarkXPress) allow you to change the color of

a bitmap fi le that uses the Bitmap color model.

As you learned in Chapter 13, you can also create PNG fi les from Illustrator using the Save for Web & Devices feature However, the PNG format also appears as an export format because the Save for Web & Devices feature is hardwired at 72 ppi To export a PNG fi le at any other resolution, you need

to use the PNG export function

The PNG format is a raster-based image format and is used for web design, for icon and interface design, and as a general image exchange format In fact, the Apple operating systems Tiger and Leopard (Mac OS X versions 10.4 and 10.5) create a PNG fi le when you take a screen shot PNG fi les can support 24-bit color, but more importantly, the format also supports 256-level alpha channels for transparency, meaning you can give images soft edges that fade to transparent (unlike the GIF format, which supports one-color transparency only)

When exporting a PNG fi le, you can specify your image resolution as well

as the background color You can choose a transparent background, or you

can choose Other to select a color from the Color Picker (Figure 14.25)

Additionally, you can choose to turn on antialiasing and interlacing

Figure 14.25 You can

specify any color as a

back-ground color for a PNG fi le,

including transparency.

EXPORTING FILES FROM ILLUSTRATOR 487

Exporting Art for Use in Microsoft Offi ce Applications

One of the most diffi cult things to do is create artwork in a professional design application (such as Illustrator) and have that same artwork display and print reliably in a business application such as Microsoft PowerPoint Finding the right fi le format for this workfl ow is diffi cult because JPEG images don’t support transparent back- grounds and EPS fi les don’t display well onscreen In addition, EPS fi les require the use of a PostScript printer, which most business professionals do not have.

After much research, the folks on the Adobe Illustrator development team discovered that the PNG format was perfect for placing art from Illustrator into Microsoft Offi ce documents Because the format supports transpar- ent backgrounds and displays beautifully on computer screens, a PNG fi le set to a resolution high enough to also print well, resulting in great-looking art in Offi ce documents.

To save time and make it easier to quickly export a fi le from Illustrator to use in Microsoft Offi ce, choose

File > Save for Microsoft Offi ce Illustrator saves your fi le as a PNG fi le set to 150 ppi with antialiasing turned

on Once you’ve created the PNG fi le, you can place it into any Microsoft Offi ce application by choosing the

Insert Picture function in Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, or Microsoft PowerPoint (Figure 14.26).

Figure 14.26 To place a

PNG fi le into a Microsoft Offi ce document, choose Insert > Picture > From File when in Word, Excel, or PowerPoint, and locate the

fi le on your computer or server.

Because of a bug in the Mac version of Microsoft Offi ce, transparency in a PNG fi le does not appear correctly

at the default view setting (it does appear correctly when viewed in full-screen mode and when printed) For this reason, the Save for Microsoft Offi ce command sets the background color to white instead of transparent

If you are placing your art into Microsoft Offi ce for Windows, you can create a PNG with a transparent ground by using the PNG Export function.

back-The AutoCAD Drawing (.dwg) and AutoCAD Interchange File (.dxf) Formats

The DWG and the DXF fi le formats are both used for exchanging fi les with computer-aided design (CAD) applications These formats can be especially helpful when you want to send Illustrator artwork to architects, interior designers, or industrial designers Both formats support vector and raster elements

When exporting a DXF or a DWG fi le (they both use the same export

dia-log box; Figure 14.27), you can specify the version of AutoCAD you want

your fi le to be compatible with and the number of colors in the resulting

fi le If your fi le contains raster elements (or if vector elements need to be rasterized), you can choose to have them embedded as either bitmap or JPEG fi les

TIP If you need some

of the functionality that

CAD applications have, you

might look into the CAD tools

plug-in from Hot Door,

avail-able at www.hotdoor.com

Figure 14.27 Illustrator

uses the same export

options dialog box for both

DXF and DWG formats.

EXPORTING FILES FROM ILLUSTRATOR 489

Additionally, you can choose to export only the artwork that you currently

have selected on the artboard Selecting Alter Paths for Appearance modifi es

paths, if necessary, so that they appear when opened in a CAD application

Additionally, you can outline all text to avoid the need to send fonts

The Windows Metafi le (.wmf ) and Enhanced

Metafi le (.emf ) Formats

The Windows Metafi le (WMF) and Enhanced Metafi le (EMF) formats

were developed to move graphics between applications on the Windows

platform These two formats support both vector and raster elements but

are severely limited with regard to the kinds of art they can reliably display

and print (EMF is slightly better) Both formats can create only straight

vector lines, not curved ones To make up for this, curved lines appear as

numerous tiny straight paths, which results in large fi les with many anchor

points If possible, avoid using these formats for anything other than simple

artwork You can’t specify any additional options when exporting WMF or

EMF fi les

The Flash (.swf ) Format

SWF is a popular web-based fi le format that supports both vectors and

rasters The Flash fi le format has become extremely popular because of its

capability to contain interactive or animated content You can use Illustrator

to generate a SWF fi le that you want to upload directly to a website, use in a

Flex framework rich Internet application (RIA), or even place into InDesign

for creating interactive PDF fi les

The SWF Options dialog box contains “ just a few” options for creating the

SWF fi les that are right for you (Figure 14.28) Along the right side of the

dialog box are options to save presets of SWF output settings, to preview

your SWF in your default web browser, and to preview your SWF using

Adobe Device Central The SWF Options dialog box is actually split into

two separate panels labeled Basic and Advanced, which you can access by

clicking their respective buttons that appear underneath the Cancel button

along the right side of the dialog box

Basic Options

The options in the Basic panel of the SWF Options dialog box are general settings that apply to most SWF fi les:

• Export As You can export Illustrator fi les in one of four ways: AI File

to SWF File, which creates a single SWF fi le that contains all your Illustrator artwork; AI Layers to SWF Frames, where each layer is converted into a key frame, resulting in a single animated SWF fi le;

AI Layers to SWF Files, where each layer in your Illustrator document

is exported as a separate SWF fi le (useful when you are creating Flash scenes); and AI Layers to SWF Symbols

• Version You can export a SWF that is compatible with any available

ver-sion of Flash Player The default is Flash Player 9, which many believe is present on more than 90 percent of computers that access the Internet

• Options A variety of general settings appear in this section You can

choose to export your SWF at the exact size of your artboard or active crop area If your fi le contains artwork that may not translate to the SWF format perfectly, you can select Preserve Appearance to expand or rasterize those areas to ensure the integrity of the appearance of your art Compressing a fi le will result in a smaller SWF You can choose to include all symbols in your resulting SWF (even if they aren’t used on the artboard), have your text converted to outlines, and ignore kerning that you may have applied to text You can also choose to enclose metadata (from information you’ve entered using the File > File Info

Figure 14.28 The Flash

export dialog box in

Illustrator has so many

options that there’s a Basic

button and an Advanced

button that are used to

tog-gle between two full panels.

EXPORTING FILES FROM ILLUSTRATOR 491

function) and protect the resulting SWF fi le from being opened in Flash

by applying a password

• Curve Quality This setting controls the quality level for curved paths

in the resulting SWF fi le

• Background Color This setting allows you to specify a background

color for the SWF fi le

• Local playback security You can choose whether the SWF fi le can

access local or network fi les only

Advanced Options

The options found in the Advanced panel of the SWF Options dialog box

are settings that apply to rasterized portions of a fi le and animated content:

• Image Format If there is raster content in your fi le (or if fl attening

requires that content becomes rasterized), you can choose how those

images are stored in your SWF fi le—either using a lossless format or

a lossy format If you choose the lossy format, which is JPEG, you can

choose a JPEG quality and the Baseline setting You can also choose

the resolution you want your raster content to use (usually 72 ppi)

The remainder of the options present in the Advanced panel of the

SWF Options dialog box are specifi c to animated SWF content

There-fore, they are available only when choosing the AI Layers to SWF

Frames option in the Export As pop-up menu in the Basic panel of the

dialog box

• Frame Rate This setting controls how fast the animation plays and is

measured in frames per second (although in the context of Illustrator,

they are actually layers per second) A lower value will slow down the

animation, while a higher value will cause the animation to play faster

• Looping Selecting this option causes the animation to repeat itself

endlessly

• Animate Blends If your Illustrator fi le contains any blends,

select-ing this option will automatically animate those blends in the resultselect-ing

SWF fi le This setting allows you to keep blends live and editable in your

Illustrator fi le and still get the desired animated result Otherwise, you

would have to use the Release to Layers function in your Illustrator fi le

to manually create the content necessary to create an animation You can choose to have blends animate either as a sequence (each frame appears individually, one after the other) or as a build (each frame appears succes-sively, adding to the previous one)

• Layer Order By default, Illustrator animates layers from the bottom

up, but you can alternatively select the Top Down option

• Export Static Layers Static layers are those that appear in every frame

of the animation If you select this option, you can Command-click (Ctrl-click) any layers that you want visible throughout the entire ani-mation For example, if you had an animation of a bird fl ying across a cloudy sky, you might set the layers that contain the sky and cloud elements to export as static layers

For an in-depth discussion of how you can create great-looking SWF fi les, including adding interactive hotspots and animations, refer to Chapter 13

The Joint Photographic Experts Group (.jpg) Format

An extremely popular raster-based format, JPEG fi les are used mainly for exchanging photographic content and artwork Although the JPEG format

is used heavily in web design, it is also the format of choice for the tronic delivery of stock photographs and for digital cameras One of the rea-sons why JPEG is used for these tasks is because the JPEG format can take advantage of compression algorithms that can dramatically reduce fi le size For example, a high-resolution image that is normally 10 MB in size might

elec-be only 1 MB in size when saved as a JPEG

However, the JPEG format uses a lossy compression algorithm, and times a JPEG fi le may exhibit artifacts or loss in detail because of this com-

some-pression (Figure 14.29) A lower comsome-pression setting enhances image detail,

at the cost of a larger fi le size

Although you can save JPEG fi les from the Save for Web & Devices feature

in Illustrator, you can do so only at 72 ppi Using the JPEG Export function, you can specify a custom resolution for your fi le, which allows you to create high-resolution fi les

EXPORTING FILES FROM ILLUSTRATOR 493

Besides choosing an image compression level for your fi le, you can also

specify the RGB, CMYK, or grayscale color model Format methods

deter-mine how the image appears when viewed in a web browser If you choose

the Baseline setting, the image loads completely and is then displayed at full

resolution The Progressive setting (similar to interlacing) allows the image

to appear immediately at a lower-quality setting; it then appears in full

qual-ity once the entire image is loaded (the number of scans determines how

many passes are done until the fi nal image is previewed)

Illustrator also gives you the options of antialiasing the art, embedding a

color profi le, and including a client-side or server-side image map Refer to

Chapter 13 for more information on how to defi ne image maps and the

dif-ferences between client-side and server-side image maps

The Macintosh PICT (.pct) Format

Much like the WMF and EMF formats, the PICT format was developed

to move fi les between applications on the Macintosh platform The format

Figure 14.29 When saving

a fi le as a JPEG, using the Maximum setting results in

a fi le with fewer artifacts, but doing so also results in a larger fi le size.

supports both vector and raster elements You can’t specify any additional options when exporting a PICT fi le.

The Adobe Photoshop (.psd) Format

As you learned in Chapter 12, “Working with Images,” you can export an Illustrator fi le as an Adobe Photoshop CS4 fi le and preserve vital information

in the fi le This makes it easy to start work on a design piece in Illustrator and then bring it into Photoshop to add the fi nishing touches Bringing Illustrator art into Photoshop is also useful when you’re creating art that you plan to use for websites In this way, you have high-quality artwork in Illustrator that can easily be repurposed for print, and you can add rollovers and interactivity using Photoshop or even Fireworks or Flash for the website.When exporting a PSD fi le, you can choose between the CMYK, RGB, and grayscale color models, and you can specify a resolution for your fi le

If you choose to export a fl at image, all Illustrator layers are fl attened into

a single nontransparent layer (what Photoshop calls the Background layer) Alternatively, you can select the Write Layers option that preserves layering

in Illustrator where possible (Figure 14.30) You can also choose to preserve

text and other native elements, such as compound shapes and web slices (see Chapter 12 for a complete list of the attributes that can be preserved between Illustrator and Photoshop)

Figure 14.30 By choosing

to write layers, you gain the

ability to export a fi le that

preserves live text, layers,

transparency, and mask

eff ects, and more.

CHOOSING FILE FORMATS BASED ON WORKFLOW 495

The Tagged Image File Format (.tif)

The TIFF format is widely used in graphics applications Completely

raster-based, a TIFF is a lossless image format High-resolution fi les can be quite

large, but image integrity is maintained TIFF fi les are generally supported

by print, video, and 3D-rendering applications

When exporting a TIFF, you can choose one of three different color

mod-els: RGB, CMYK, or grayscale Additionally, you can specify the resolution

for your image and choose whether to antialias the art Selecting the LZW

Compression option results in a smaller fi le (the compression is lossless)

You can also specify a platform-specifi c byte order (for better compatibility

with Windows systems), and you have the ability to embed color profi les

when you’re working in a color-managed workfl ow

The Text Format (.txt)

Sometimes you just need to export the text in a fi le so you can use it in

another application or for another purpose that Illustrator can’t handle You

can export text to be compatible with a specifi c platform, or you can export

text in Unicode, which is platform independent

So many different fi le formats exist that it’s often diffi cult to know which

one to use for each situation Of course, every workfl ow demands special

attention, and there are always exceptions and special cases However, for

the most part, you can follow certain rules now that you really understand

what each fi le format is capable of doing

Print Workfl ows

When working in print workfl ows, designers traditionally use page layout

applications such as QuarkXPress or InDesign, using fi le formats such as

EPS and PDF

Traditionally, EPS is used for moving fi les from Illustrator into page layout applications However, with the ability to use transparency effects in your Illustrator fi les, the limitations of EPS become apparent For example, as

a designer, you know that Illustrator creates vector-based fi les that can be scaled infi nitely because they are resolution independent You have always been able to save a fi le as an EPS from Illustrator, place it into an applica-tion such as QuarkXPress, scale that artwork at will, and never worry about resolution or the quality of the resulting printout

However, as you will discover in Chapter 15, the process of transparency

fl attening may convert some vector content in your fi le into raster images, which are resolution dependent Because an EPS contains fl attened infor-mation, you can’t assume that an EPS fi le can be scaled infi nitely in a QuarkXPress layout anymore In fact, you have to think of an EPS fi le from Illustrator as you would an EPS fi le saved from Photoshop—you need to limit how much you can enlarge a graphic

Although this is a concern only when your fi le contains transparency effects, keep in mind that many effects in Illustrator introduce the need for fl atten-ing (these are discussed in detail in Chapter 15)

On the other hand, native Illustrator fi les (that contain PDF 1.5 by default) have the ability to preserve live transparency, and therefore, fl attening doesn’t occur When you save your fi le as a native Illustrator fi le, you can still scale that fi le infi nitely, after it has been placed into a page layout appli-cation But this has a catch—you need a page layout application that can

fl atten that transparency when it prints your fi le That means InDesign

Refer to Table 14.2 for a list of suggested fi le formats, based on the page

layout application you’re using

Table 14.2 Suggested File Formats

EPS, Native AI (Quark Version 8), QuarkXPress PDF/X-1a (PDF 1.3) EPS, PDF/X-1a (PDF 1.3) InDesign Native AI, PDF 1.4 EPS, Native AI, PDF 1.4

NOTE As of the

print-ing of this book, the

latest version of QuarkXPress,

version 8, has the ability to

place native Illustrator fi les

(.ai) However, according to

initial tests, Illustrator fi les

with complex transparency

do not print correctly when

printed from QuarkXPress 8

The recommendation is still

to use the EPS fi le format

when placing art into

QuarkXPress

CHOOSING FILE FORMATS BASED ON WORKFLOW 497

Web Workfl ows

The choices are much easier to make for web designers This is not because

there are any fewer fi le types to choose from but is mainly because the use

of fi le types is usually dictated by the technology being used For example,

if you want to create animated content, you know you’re using a GIF fi le

or a Flash fi le Some sites are restricted as to what kinds of formats are

sup-ported (for example, not every web browser can display SVG fi les), so a

designer is usually at the mercy of technology when it comes to deciding on

a fi le format

However, much can be done to a fi le before a fi nal GIF or JPG is created

Therefore, you may fi nd it benefi cial to create your artwork in Illustrator

and then export it as a Photoshop fi le, which you can then edit and work on

in other applications, such as Photoshop or even Fireworks, Flash, or Adobe

Dreamweaver CS4

Other Workfl ows

Of course, other workfl ows exist, including video, industrial design,

archi-tecture and engineering, fashion design, environmental design—the list

goes on With the information you now have about what each fi le format is

used for, you should be able to develop a workfl ow that works for you