Illustrator CS4 question!

where in the heck can I change the size of my document?! Anyone. Its driving me nuts. Once I create a new doc where can I change it if needed?
thx

Here is a link to the Illustrator CS4 help docs concerning document setup:
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/Illustrator/14.0/WSA3F11634-6132-4959-B4F2-6AAE82FA75B0.html

Similar Messages

A few new Illustrator CS4 questions.

Weird, I just can't figure these out.
First, how do you change the document size/orientation when it's already open? This seemed to be a cinch in all other versions of Illustrator, but now... the new Document set-up menu is quite different.
Related, how does one ADD or SUBTRACT art boards from a document? And remove the art board guides when activated?
How does one prevent Illustrator from opening all documents/a new document, in the same window box, and instead in a separate window box?
If these questions seem rudimentary, let me assure you that I might be having a spaz moment with the new CS4 version of Illustrator, but I've been using the program itself for 10+ years. Maybe I'm becoming lazy and/or senile?

"I have a complex file I created in photoshop with many layers, containing
gradients and blends with no background layer, cropped and feathered edges and
100 opacity. I want to use this for a design in Illustrator CS4 but not at 100%
as I want to type over the top and be able to read. If I simply change the
opacity then the background color in illustrator changes the look of the PS
file. I have tried everything I know, including going back to PS and changing it
there, but the same results. What I ultimately want is a lighter version of the
PS file that is not transparent and allows color behind it to affect the over
vibrancy of the PS file. I'm sure there is a way, but since my knowledge is all
self taught I just don't know the answer. Sure could use some help. Thanks
R"

Illustrator CS4 not flattening for PDF 3rd time asking this question

Everytime I save my Illustrator file as an Pdf file so I can upload it to the company I use for printing site, the layers are all off center. My printing company has not changed anything in there system to have this problem happen. I actually saved the to Illustrator CS3 then saved it as a PDF, and it uploaded fine and it was correct. It seem that Illustrator CS4 is not flattening the file correctly. I never had this problem with CS3. I contacted the adobe they have no idea why this is happening, they said it hould not be happening. Has anyone had this problem and how did you solve it?

here is an example, when I upload this image to the printers I loose the white background and eveything on the bottom of the card is pushed up. The same thing happens with the brochure I have. I can't upload that because this site will not allow it.

Newbie Question - Arrows in Illustrator CS4

Hi,
I'm new here and a bit of a newbie to Illustrator CS4 (migrating from CorelDraw X3). I'm trying to add an arrow to a line which was drawn using the line segment tool. I followed the steps in the online help which says to select the object (line segment), then go to Effect > Stylize -> Add Arrowheads. The only option I have in the Stylize menu is "Glowing Edges ..." Is it possible the line segment I drew is not considered an object?
Please help, this is driving me crazy.

Yeah, I know this is a few months old. Just wanted to say thanks for posting the answer, since I just spent about 45 minutes trying to figure this out, going down the same "glowing edges" garden path as the OP. I need one of those "I'm with stupid" t-shirts. At least I was able to find the answer. The Adobe help files of course were no help at all, and Adobe even makes it hard to search the forums (hey, I DON'T CARE about arrowheads in Flash, already), but I did find it. Thanks again.
Edward

Path question in Illustrator CS4

Hi...I am impoorting a bar graph from Microsfot Excel to Illustrator CS4. So far, so good. I can simply cut and paste from the clipboard and Illustrator understands the Excel graph. What I want to do is to convert the graph to grayscle (which I've done), then apply a spot color to just one of the bars in the graph. I'm able to use the direct selection tool to select one of the bars. Each bar appears to be its own path. Then I open up the swatches menu and apply a color. But ALL of the bars in the graph turn that color, as if all of the paths are the same. Is there any way to ungroup a path? I tried the "ungroup" command to no avail. Thanks.

Thanks, Kurt. I figured out how to do it. Actually, I figured out two different ways:
1. Using OBJECT/COMPOUND PATH/RELEASE
and
2. WINDOWS/PATHFINDER/DIVIDE
Both seem to work.

Illustrator CS4 compatibility question

Howdy,
First time posting to the Adobe forum(s). I recently took over software purchasing and
have a request for Illustrator CS4.
The End User is asking: "Can you confirm with the rep that Illustrator CS4 is compatible
with documents produced with InDesign and Photoshop versions CS2?"
I've been digging around but can't come up w/ an answer, so I'm turning to the experts :-)
Thanks!
- jim

Wade,
People that can recognized a building on fire from far away, normally live longer. Other people, prefer to be inside of the burning building to know it is on fire. Darwin was right!
Who Am I to contradict John Nack - Principal Product Manager, Adobe Photoshop, and the thousand of users saying that installers are bad. Wade, I think you know more than John Nack - Principal Product Manager, Adobe Photoshop! WOW!
So you think all these people are wrong:
http://forums.adobe.com/message/2338394#2338394
http://forums.adobe.com/message/2556519#2556519
http://forums.adobe.com/message/1269588#1269588
No help from Adobe: http://forums.adobe.com/message/2518421#2518421
Well, there are lot more. But I think you can tell to all that people and a Principal Product Manager that they are wrong.
If I waste my money in Adobe's CS5 with bugs that Adobe will refuse to fix, it's not Jim's concern. It is only yours!
I am just telling Jim to be careful and to TRY CS5 version (because I want to help him)
And stop being infatuate of what I am going to do next. People here, don't care about your whining about what I do or don't do. This is Illustrator Forum, not Hans' Forum.
But thank you for your attention and care for what I do in life!

Illustrator CS4 view doesn't match view of same file in Acrobat

We're seeing a pretty strange problem with Illustrator CS4 (Mac and PC). The problem seems to happen ins CS5 and CS6 as well. We have a complex piece of artwork for a foil blister and we use a paragraph of text that has 3 transforms applied to which effectively step and repeat the paragraph of text in a repeat pattern across the artwork. This setup very precisely as it needs to be 100% accurate for print purposes as several units are printed side by side and the repeat runs across the units. Everything is setup correctly in Illustrator and then we re-save as a PDF with 'Preserve Illustrator Editing Capabilities' on.
We genearally save as a PDF 1.6 but we have tried all the combinations now. The file still looks perfect in Illustrator but when the PDF is opened in Acrobat (any version) the step and repeat (transform) on the paragraph of text is now no longer in alignment on onside of the artwork but still OK on one side. No matter what we do we can't fix this problem andit's recreatable each time. Also it's not file specific as we can build a new file and it will also exhibit the problem. We're only talking about a tiny jump here - <0.2mm but this means the artwork is out of spec. Any help is gratefully received!!!!

Hi Russell
Never a dumb question if it it had pointed us in the right direction. Yes the fonts are all embedded (legally). We tried the Acrobat Preferences but the don't make any difference. If we outline the fonts in Illustrator the problem still happens when we do a save as so it doesn't seem to be a font issue.
regards
Michael

Can you use Adobe Illustrator CS4 Classroom in a book tutorials(on CD rom) without buying the software?

I recently purchased Adobe Illustrator Classroom In a book CS4, and am having trouble getting to the lessons through the CD-rom which came with the book. My question is do I need to purchase the Illustrator CS4 product to use the tutorials/lessons? I would REALLY appreciate some help, it's needed for a college credit for a design major. Thank you!!

There's the trial version that you can download from adoble.com. I think it's good for 30 days. Other than that, doesn't your school have a computer lab?
There's no way to open the files and work with them other than in a copy of Illustrator. You might be able to open them in inkscape (free) or Freehand (no longer available) but then what are you learning? Not Illustrator...
[edit] You should be able to get most of the lessons done in an older version of Illy though, which might be more affordable (if you can find them for sale)

Illustrator CS4 Running Extremely Slow

We are running Illustrator CS4 (version 14.0.0) on a Mac Pro with OS 10.5.8. When we are working on files with a fair to large amount of linked, not embedded, images, the speed of Illustrator is DRAMATICALLY slower. We get the lovely beach ball with just about every move we make - switching tools, locking/unlocking layers, clicking on an element. The beach ball is there for 3 or more seconds with each move - causing the simplest of tasks to take forever. Document size doesn't seem to matter. It happens on a 350 MB file and on a 60 MB file. It does seem like the files it happens to have a fair amount of linked images placed - some have 10 links. some have up to 30 links. Has anyone run into this problem? I haven't found many complaints online, but can't imagine we are the only ones with this problem. I'm anxiously waiting for CS5 in hopes it will solve this problem. Any suggestions?
One more thing - these files that are slow in CS4, run normal in CS3. I don't notice anything being sluggish with them in CS3,

We are having the same problem. We are running Illustrator CS4 (version 14.0.0) on a Mac Pro Quad core, 6GB ram, with OS 10.5.6
We have two machines that seem to be effected and one that isn't, all are the same spec and setup. But we can't seem to narrow down what the problem is.
One work around we have found is to open the file that is sluggish. Let it load then hide the illustrator, kick the network off. then go back to illustrator. It will ask to re-link the images (which are all stored on the network), just click cancel and it will show the red question marks in the links panel. After that is done it goes back to being speedy. If we need to import another pic, just reconnect and disconnect the network as needed. Not ideal but saves having to wait 30 seconds in between each nudge or move.

PDF displays differently from Illustrator CS4 to Acrobat 9.1.x - no idea why

My name is Chris Plessinger. I'm the local IT support for a company that produces promotional products.
Recently, the Art Department came to me with a problem.
They had a graphic that was sent to them by the customer in a PDF file.
The PDF, when opened in Acrobat 9.1, shows an image with another image imposed on the lower left hand corner.
When the PDF is opened in Illustrator CS4, the image is there, but the smaller image that was imposed on the lower left corner isn't there.
In Illustrator, when you press CTRL-Y, you can see the outline of where it would be, but it's clearly not there.
I'm don't know enough about the software to determine why it is showing up in one Adobe product and not displaying in another.
I am uploading the file in question to this post.
I would be very, very appreciative of any feedback on I can get on this issue. I'm not a graphic artist and can't answer the question being posed to me.
Regards,
Christopher

Sweet.
But I have a new question now: how (exactly) did you accomplish this? How did you flatten it?
Thanks for the quick response. I appreciate your taking the time to help.
Thanks,
Chris

Illustrator issues questions--I need help

Illustrator CS4, MAC OSX 10.5.8...
After struggling off and on for a few months with Illustrator, I'd like to be able to confirm a few things, so I know I'm not insane.
1. Canvas/Pasteboard. Is there not an easy way to change that a bit so I can see more difference between the artboard and background? I found a workaround using transparency grid color and then putting a white picture block on the artboard (on a locked layer underneath). This is at least acceptable for various things. Is there some setting I'm missing? Mostly I'd just like to change the color of the canvas so it stands out more.(And I'd rather have my own choice than whatever the preset tends to be because these blaring white/light screens are killer on the eyes...)
1a. How do I save a "blank" version of the canvas set up I made so my "colorized" canvas comes up in new documents? Is there a way to set a default document?
1b. Is there a way to make the canvas a bit smaller?
2. Scrolling. When I select an object and want to move it up the page/artboard, AI doesn't seem to scroll to the area I'm trying to get to. Is there a setting I'm missing or accidentally checked/unchecked? I have to go to the scrollbar and click that and move the item screen-by-screen up the page (alternatively, zoom out, etc.)
2a. I noticed earlier today when trying to sort out text issues (point text, specifically) when I rotated a box... as soon as my cursor hit the edge of the document, the window view practically scrolled out of the universe! Why would it scroll to an out-of-view place in this instance and not scroll when I'm trying to drag an item to an out-of-view place in the document?
3. I have tons of legacy Freehand 7 files. A decade's worth (not to mention apps prior to that for another decade). Every piece of text comes in as a "text area" box (ordinarily not a problem). But not a one of them shows all the text. I understand this is an issue with legacy files of all types (saving out old FH7 files as an older version of AI yields the same results.)
Pages are cluttered with red + everywhere. Never mind the time sink, does AI have any way to "snap to" regarding a text area box to the text? How do you get multiple text boxes/objects to line up and be the same size? I'm not seeing H x W spec boxes to enter numerics in for text area boxes (as a start). Do I need to use grids or guides for this?
4. Whatever tool I'm using persists and doesn't change to a regular arrow when I go to click a scrollbar. Program glitch?
5. How do I set a default font? Or a default doc to open with the desired font preset in it?
6. When saving out a graphic to be used in another app, is there no "save selection as.."? Or do I need to open a new doc, paste and save from there for each thing? (My master documents for some frequently used items tend to have many items)
I know these are really newbie questions, but what used to be 5 minute tweaks in the past (in Freehand) now turn into all-day ordeals trying to figure out what I consider to be just the basics. So I'm not really learning about all the features and aspects of AI at this point.
Can anyone confirm some of the stuff above or point out what I've missed?
Thanks

Hello Scott:
Thanks for reassuring me I'm only partly insane
Thanks also for the tip on setting up a default document. I'll pursue that tomorrow when I'm a little less bleary....
Scrolling-- I have a group (or object selected) and I'm just dragging it along, but it doesn't go farther than the edge of the doc.
I'm a whiz with a trackball, but useless with a scroll wheel.
Ugh on the no default font thing.
Magnifier glass icon on the scrollbar... well, it's disorienting but I'll live.
I see the "save as" and "save a copy"-- but I don't see a "save SELECTION"? Where is that?
Hmmm, yeah, I have some words but I don't think "turd" was one of them lol. Too mild for this 16-hour day.
Admittedly, I've been more than a little shocked with AI.

PSD Spot Color Channels in Illustrator CS4

Hi all.
Screenprinter here. Trying to migrate my way into CS4. No such
luck so far.
Way back in Illustrator CS2 I used to be able to place a PSD file with Spot Channels,
and have each channel show up as a separate object in Illustrator. This was incredibly
useful, nay, necessary for creating/laying out separations and adding vector work.
From what I've read and tried, this is no longer possible in CS4, which leaves me running two versions,
which is no fun.
I suppose my question is, has anyone come up with a workaround for this, or does the newest
release support this type of operation? From reading the boards, I've found that I'm not nearly
the only person who needs this feature, and so would hope that there is an alternative to
running CS2 still.
Us poor lowly screen printers get dumped on by nearly all Adobe products in terms of usability
(ever shoot the stock reg marks from photoshop?) give us this one feature!

In Illustrator CS2, the individual Spot Channels from Photoshop used to become Opacity masks when imported.
In Illustrator CS4, they are not converted to Opacity masks. Your spot colors are still there - look in the Swatches panel. There is a Spot channels image in the layers panel with 100% Multiply blend mode applied to it.
So it is not correct to say that it is no longer possible to bring spot channels from Photoshop into the Illustrator CS4. See the comparison snapshots below.
Hope this helps.

Why does Illustrator CS4 save pdfs with clipping paths and make rasters of gradient areas

I am on a IMAC and upgraded to 10.6.8 Jan 2014. I am using CS4 Illustrator to create with. When i save my work as a pdf then reopen the pdf in Ill to make changes, the whole page has:
A.) Multiple clipping paths around it
B.) Most text has now become outlined. Not editable anymore.
C.) Gradient areas have multiple clipping paths of the single gradient area
D.) The gradient areas now become rasterized.
This is very frustrating as now all of my marketing files, some 300+, are worthless. I don't know where to look anymore to find the problem.
Please help.
Thank you very much

John,
I have the presets as you have shown. I had been editing the supplied items as you suggested. Then figured i should ask the questions of those who are better than I.
But still a bit confused as to why the new save places clipping paths around the document.
Thank you John and Monika for your help.
why does Illustrator CS4 save pdfs with clipping paths and make rasters of gradient areas
created by John Mensinger in Illustrator - View the full discussion
I do a save as "pdf" in the format pull down tab. I save to a folder on the hard drive. Where is the "Illustrator editability" check box? I presumed it is in Acrobat some where
but i seem to be lost.
It is in Illustrator's Save Adobe PDF dialog, which pops up before the saved file is written.
https://forums.adobe.com/servlet/JiveServlet/downloadImage/2-6439399-644928/450-397/Untitl ed-1.jpg
Sorry i didn't mention this, but this seems to have occurred when using images and text from provided pdfs.
That's a critical fact. If you didn't do the original save, the above is moot, and it's too late to exercise any control over the save process. Someone else failed to save for editability. The only thing you can do is clean up/repair the content, (release clipping masks, rebuild rasterized elements, expand objects, etc.), and save correctly as AI. Then, if necessary, re-save as PDF with the correct settings.
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Illustrator CS4 - Saving Buttons Created in Illustrator CS4

How do I save a created button in Illustrator cs4 without the whole page - just the button - it was straightforward in illustrator CS3.

I don't understand your question. In all version of Illustrator you always save the whole page. Do you mean Export? What format? How are you exporting? Are you using Save for Web? Did you turn off Crop to Artboard? Have you tried resizing the artboard to the size of hte button?
Also, the whole purpose of this forum is to provide help for users of Illustrator. Please try to include some hint about your problem in the title of your post. Imagine if everyone did what you did, calling their posts "Illustrator CS" or "Illustrator CS3". How much fun would it be to go back and check your responses, when there are dozens of posts with the same title?

How to create unique shapes in Illustrator CS4

First off....
I am new to the Adobe suite of applications and also new to owning a Macbook Pro. I have been using a design program for Windows for many years.
I would like to master the creation and manipulation of shapes using Illustrator CS4.
As one example, how would I create the following:
I want to end up with a shape that is similar to one-quarter of a full moon.
Using my Windows program (not an Adobe product), I would create a line using a line tool, and then I would be able to convert that line to a curve using a shape tool, which would enable me to drag from the midpoint of the line and have it become an arc. Then, while still using the shape tool, I could click once to select one of the endpoint nodes to then click on an "auto-close" option which would add a straight-line edge to close the shape for outline and fill purposes (so one side of the shape is straight at this point and the other side is curved). Using the shape tool, I would double-click near the midpoint of the straight edge to add a new node to the shape, and then I would use the "convert to curve" option from within the shape tool to be able to drag this straight side towards the curved side to end up with the quarter-moon shape as desired.
How would I make this sort of shape using Illustrator, and as a general question for learning, how can I learn all about how to put lines in the design space for purposes of joining these lines, curving any part of one or more lines and then filling or outlining the finished shape made from joined lines?

> and as a general question for learning, how can I learn all about how to put lines in the design space for purposes of joining these lines, curving any part of one or more lines and then filling or outlining the finished shape made from joined lines?
Well, you can read the documentation. That will be much more thorough and methodical than asking a random series of "how do I..." questions in a user forum. And it will take you
a lot less time.
> Using my Windows program (not an Adobe product)
You can say the name. If there's actually anyone here who doesn't know other drawing programs exist, well, they
need to. Your description sounds like Xara Xtreme.
> I want to end up with a shape that is similar to one-quarter of a full moon..create a line...convert that line to a curve...drag from the midpoint of the line and have it become an arc...select one of the endpoint nodes... "auto-close"...double-click near the midpoint of the straight edge to add a new node..."convert to curve"...drag...
A similar procedure could be used in just about any vector drawing program that draws cubic Bezier curves. A much quicker procedure could also be used in just about any program, by leveraging the geometric shape tools and path combination commands that are just as ubiquitous:
1. Draw a circle.
2. Duplicate the circle.
3. Overlap the circles partially.
4. Use one circle to "punch" the other, leaving the difference (the crescent shape).
Here are two AI-specific differences I note in your description:
Illustrator can't bend a straght segment by dragging its middle if the straight segment has both its associated curve handles retracted. Dragging such a segment in AI just moves the segment (and its associated anchorPoints).
Illustrator displays fills on open paths. There is no option to turn off that often unwanted behavior.
Again, read the manual (the online Help files). It will take you decades to learn the program by asking random questions on the basic use of the tools, location of commands, organization (well, disorganization) scheme of the program, etc., etc.
JET

Illustrator CS4 question!

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