Adobe Illustrator 7 Review

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Illustrator
Turns 10 with 7!

by Paul George

Adobe Illustrator™, one of the top 3 players in the vector/drawing application game is now ten years old, but you're the one getting the birthday present (for a small fee, of course). Version 7.0, for both Mac and PC, was recently released amid both rave reviews and a little controversy. What will make Windows users happy is that they finally have an identical feature set to the Macintosh version, jumping all the way from version 4.1 to 7.0. Mac users, on the other hand, might feel as if they weren't invited to the party, getting more of an interface refinement than a true upgrade.

The Good

Alot has changed for both platforms, but as previously mentioned, the PC crowd has alot more to celebrate about. They now have Align, Layers and Gradients palettes, as well as the patterns-on-paths feature that Mac users got with version 6.0. They also got some killer effects like the Colors filters, as well as the venerable Pathfinder filters, which let you edit objects in myriad ways. Also new is the ability to drag-and-drop between Illustrator and Photoshop, as is support for applying Photoshop plug-ins on bitmapped images.

The Macintosh version, on the other hand, has been the topic of some discussion, lately, most of it centering on whether Adobe made this upgrade for Windows or for the Mac OS, where Illustrator has a much larger user base. The truth, however, is that this is a very good upgrade for the Mac. This is due, in large part, to the aforementioned interface improvements, but also because Adobe has (finally) brought Illustrator into sync with their image-editing colossus, Photoshop.


	For example, take a look at the main tool palettes for both programs, as well as the other palettes, such as Layers and Swatches. Notice the way that fill and stroke have changed from version 6 (goodbye, Paint Style palette). Another of the many (yet simple) improvements to Illustrator is the new way of deleting a Layer.


	To do this, just like in Photoshop, you simply drag the layer's icon to the small trash tab at the bottom of the Layers palette. These are only a few of the many new similarities between the two applications. Some new command-key short cuts may find veteran users in a short adjustment period, however, but don't fret. Just like the recent upgrade of Photoshop, you'll find that the new shortcuts make more sense and will have you working more productively once the initial where the hell did they put Bring to Front!? wears off.


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