Switching to Adobe Illustrator CS4
Illustrator CS4 — the essential vector tool
Although Adobe continues to sell Macromedia® FreeHand® MX software, we have no plans to develop or deliver any new feature-based releases. Recognizing that FreeHand has a loyal customer base, we encourage users to migrate to new Adobe® Illustrator® CS4 software, which supports both PowerPC® and Intel® based Macs as well as Microsoft® Windows® XP and Windows Vista® systems.
There are a wealth of good reasons to switch to Illustrator — from industry-standard drawing tools to tight integration with other Adobe applications — and just as many resources to help ease the transition.
- Top reasons to switch to Illustrator
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Take advantage of a more efficient workspace
Updated interface — Increase your efficiency using space-saving features and custom viewing options that are common to Adobe Illustrator CS4, Photoshop® CS4, InDesign® CS4, and Flash® CS4 Professional software. View the toolbar in one column, dock self-adjusting panels as icons, set panel overlap just the way you like it, choose darker or lighter workspace color, and more.
Control panel — Discover more options faster by accessing anchor point controls, clipping masks, envelope distortions, and more from the context-sensitive Control panel.
Custom workspaces — Work more efficiently using custom workspaces that display only the panels you need for a specific task. Save, share, or access any workspace at any time, or use workspace presets, including one that emulates the standard FreeHand workspace.
Extend your creativity
Blob Brush tool — Create a single, clean vector shape as you sketch, even when strokes overlap. Use the Blob Brush tool together with the Eraser and Smooth tools for natural vector painting.
Refined graphic styles — Combine styles for unique effects and increased efficiency. Apply styles to an object without disturbing its original appearance. Preview styles applied to selected objects and to text. Choose from an expanded library of prebuilt styles to jump-start your projects.
Live Color — Explore, apply, and control color variations using Live Color: select any artwork and interactively edit and replace the colors to see results immediately. Use the intuitive Color Guide panel to quickly choose tints, shades, or harmonious color combinations.
Live Paint — Easily paint any closed or partially closed area of your artwork with the Live Paint Bucket, which automatically detects and corrects gaps and lets you interactively select colors from the Swatches panel for fast filling.
Live Trace — Quickly and accurately convert photos, scans, or other bitmap images to editable and scalable vector paths using Live Trace.
Work more productively
Multiple artboards — Create files containing up to 100 artboards of varying sizes. Display the artboards any way you want — overlapping, side by side, or stacked. Save, export, and print artboards independently or together. Easily export artboards automatically to multiple files, or export them as a single, multipage PDF file.
In-panel appearance editing — Edit object characteristics directly in the Appearance panel, eliminating the need to open individual panels for attributes such as fill or stroke color. Change an appearance shared among objects and create a complex set of attributes to apply to new objects as a single graphic style. You can even control the display of individual attributes, enabling faster work by turning off complex effects that must be re-rendered with every move.
Integration with Adobe design applications — Share files smoothly with other Adobe professional design applications.
Adobe Bridge CS4 Enhanced — Use Adobe Bridge to efficiently browse and preview your creative assets, run automation scripts, access new Adobe services, and more.
Design for the web, video and motion graphics, and mobile devices
Integration with Adobe Flash — Import native Illustrator files into Flash CS4 Professional software, or copy and paste artwork from Illustrator to Flash, with paths, anchor points, gradients, clipping masks, and symbols intact. Layers, groups, and object names are also preserved.
New Document Profiles — Start creating new artwork quickly by selecting prebuilt profiles for various types of media. Save custom profiles that specify setup parameters such as multiple artboards, artboard dimensions, styles, and color spaces.
Web and mobile device export — Easily export using the Save for Web and Devices dialog box, which lets you choose from HTML, SWF, GIF, and JPEG formats, along with color count, compression, file size, mobile output, and more.
Adobe Device Central CS4 — Create rich graphic content for mobile. Design, preview, and test mobile content with this innovative visual testing tool that you can find within the Save for Web and Devices dialog box.
Take your text to a new level
OpenType fonts — Simplify cross-platform font management and take advantage of alternate glyphs and extended character sets with more than 80 included OpenType® fonts.
Character and Paragraph Styles — Apply formatting to individual characters, lines of type, or entire paragraphs with a single click.
Paragraph composition — Optimize line breaks throughout an entire paragraph with minimal hyphenation and better word and letter spacing.
Output reliably
Separations Preview — Avoid color output surprises such as unexpected spot colors, unwanted overprinting, overprints that don't overprint, white overprinting, and CMYK blacks in text and placed files.
Multipage PDF support — Use multiple artboards to present multiple designs from a single file. Save all your artboards or any range that you choose as a multipage PDF file. Or save individual artboards as separate PDF files.
Support for bleeds — Optimize line breaks throughout an entire paragraph with minimal hyphenation and better word and letter spacing.
PDF/X support — Create reliable, press-ready layouts using ISO-standard and ANSI-standard PDF/X formats.
Near-universal graphic file format support — Work with almost any type of graphic file, including AI, PDF, EPS, SVG, Photoshop (PSD), TIFF, GIF, JPEG, SWF, and more.
DeviceN colorspace — Place duotone or separated Photoshop images in Illustrator and preserve the file’s native color space with DeviceN support. Use multi-component and HiFi color, raster effects, transparency, and gradient meshes with confidence that your artwork will separate correctly.
LAB spot colors — Create LAB spot colors and use predefined spot colors from the Toyo, PANTONE®, DIC, and HKS libraries.
- In depth
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FreeHand to Adobe Illustrator migration FAQ
Get answers to frequently asked questions about migrating from FreeHand to Illustrator.
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FreeHand to Illustrator Migration Guide
Learn how to easily transition from FreeHand to Illustrator and discover the power of integration between all Adobe applications.
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Migrating from FreeHand to Illustrator with Mordy Golding
Let Adobe Certified Expert, Adobe Certified Print Expert, and longtime production artist Mordy Golding show you how to migrate from FreeHand to Illustrator in this training video from lynda.com.
Migrating from FreeHand to Illustrator
Use this technical resource to learn the best way to move your legacy FreeHand content into Illustrator and handle different file formats.
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Migrating from legacy versions of Illustrator
Learn how to transfer previous versions of your favorite designs to newer Illustrator releases and reap the benefits of integration with other Adobe products.
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Migrating from CorelDRAW to Illustrator
Make your switch to Illustrator more streamlined with tips and techniques from this technical guide.
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- Resources
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Adobe ICC profiles
Find out more about the Adobe RGB (1998) color image encoding used for the Adobe RGB (1998) color space.
Extensible Metadata Platform (XMP)
Find out about how Adobe's metadata technology is helping to create meaningful workflow solutions for content creators and industry partners alike.
Support for OpenType fonts
Illustrator provides advanced support for OpenType, the cross-platform font file format developed jointly by Adobe and Microsoft. Read all about the advantages of OpenType.
Adobe Print Resource Center
As a print production professional or designer, you need the latest tools to help meet the demands of your customers and partners. Find printing guides and other documentation to help you with the printing process.
