Adobe Illustrator CC For Dummies

Chapter 1

Navigating Illustrator’s Interface

IN THIS CHAPTER

Launching and configuring Illustrator

Using and customizing the toolbar

Accessing and organizing panels

Using the Control panel and the Properties panel

Adobe Illustrator’s interface can seem complicated, confusing, and sometimes redundant. Here’s why: It is complicated, confusing, and sometimes redundant. But there are good reasons why.

One reason is that people use Illustrator in so many different ways. Illustrator really is a jack-of-all-trades, and so the folks who develop it need to provide alternative pathways to get things done. For example, an artist designing a logo and an engineer sketching an electrical system have different needs and likely different approaches to drawing, and demand different ways to access Illustrator’s features.

The second reason why Illustrator’s interface is daunting is that there's so much in this application! A quick perusal of this book's Table of Contents will give you a sense of how many different things Illustrator is used for.

Finally, and perhaps ironically, some of the complexity ...