A vector graphic editor is a computer program that enables its users to create, compose and edit images with the use of mathematical and geometrical commands rather than individual pixels. This software is used in creating high-definition vector graphic images that can be scaled indefinitely without losing their quality. The output is saved in vector graphic formats, such as EPS , ODG , or SVG .
60-549: Adobe Illustrator is a vector graphics editor and design software developed and marketed by Adobe . Originally designed for the Apple Macintosh , development of Adobe Illustrator began in 1985 . Along with Creative Cloud (Adobe's shift to a monthly or annual subscription service delivered over the Internet ), Illustrator CC was released. The latest version , Illustrator 2025, was released on October 14, 2024, and
120-470: A ttcf table that allows access to the fonts within the collection by pointing to individual headers for each included font. The fonts within a collection share the same glyph-outline table, though each font can refer to subsets within those outlines in its own manner, through its cmap , name and loca tables. Collection files bear a .ttc filename extension. In classic Mac OS and macOS, TTC has file type ttcf . The suitcase format for TrueType
180-621: A pen tablet . Recent versions of bitmap editors such as GIMP and Adobe Photoshop support vector tools (e.g. editable paths), and vector editors have adopted raster effects that were once limited to bitmap editors (e.g. blurring). Some vector editors support animation , while others (e.g. Synfig Studio ) are specifically geared towards producing animated graphics . Generally, vector graphics are more suitable for animation, though there are raster-based animation tools as well. 3D computer graphics software such as Maya , Blender or Autodesk 3ds Max can also be thought of as an extension of
240-521: A " smart font " technology, named TrueType Open in 1994, later renamed to OpenType in 1996 when it merged support of the Adobe Type 1 glyph outlines. Opentype now contains all of the same functionality of Apple TrueType and Apple TrueType GX. TrueType has long been the most common format for fonts on classic Mac OS , Mac OS X , and Microsoft Windows , although Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows also include native support for Adobe's Type 1 format and
300-428: A Macintosh version until 5.0 in 1993. Version 6 was the last truly Macintosh version of Illustrator. The interface changed radically with the following version to bring consistency between Mac and Windows computer platforms. The changes remained until CS6 when some small steps were taken to restore the app to a slightly more Mac-like interface. With the introduction of Illustrator 7 in 1997, Adobe made critical changes in
360-499: A Renaissance image to evoke his vision of PostScript as a new Renaissance in publishing, and Adobe employee Luanne Seymour Cohen, who was responsible for the early marketing material, found Venus' flowing tresses a perfect vehicle for demonstrating Illustrator's strength in tracing smooth curves over bitmap source images. Over the years the rendition of this image on Illustrator's splash screen and packaging became more stylized to reflect features added in each version. The image of Venus
420-699: A TrueType Extension and a TrueType-aware version of Font/DA Mover for System 6 . For compatibility with the Laserwriter II, Apple developed fonts like ITC Bookman and ITC Chancery in TrueType format. All of these fonts could now scale to all sizes on screen and printer, making the Macintosh System 7 the first OS to work without any bitmap fonts. The early TrueType systems — being still part of Apple's QuickDraw graphics subsystem — did not render Type 1 fonts on-screen as they do today. At
480-491: A matrix comparing its own FreeHand to Illustrator and Draw in which Draw's one "win" was that it came with three different clip art views of the human pancreas. Adobe bought Aldus in 1994 for PageMaker . As part of the transaction, the Federal Trade Commission issued a complaint of Adobe Systems on October 18, 1994, ordering a divestiture of FreeHand to "remedy the lessening of competition resulting from
540-553: A new user interface , layer panels, RGB codes , and color ramp to increase performance. CS6 was released on April 23, 2012. Along with Creative Cloud (the result of Adobe's shift on its release strategy), Illustrator CC was released. This version (the 17th) was the first to be only sold in a subscription-based service model, in line with the other software in the formerly called Creative Suite . As part of Creative Cloud, this version brought improvements in that subject such as color, font and program settings syncing, saving documents to
600-402: A regular TrueType font or an OpenType font with TrueType outlines. Windows end user defined character editor (EUDCEDIT.EXE) creates TrueType font with name EUDC.TTE. An OpenType font with PostScript outlines must have an .otf extension. In principle an OpenType font with TrueType outlines may have an .otf extension, but this has rarely been done in practice. In classic Mac OS and macOS, OpenType
660-597: A small triangle at the bottom right of the toolbox icon. A small triangle has the option to view or expand some hidden tools by holding down the mouse button on the triangle. Some examples of basic tools in Illustrator are selection tools, paintbrush tools, pen tools, pencil tools e.g. Selection tools are used to the layout, adjust, and organize the artwork by selecting, positioning, and stacking objects accurately. Moreover, selection tools can group, lock or hide, and measure objects. Paintbrush tools can be used to modify
SECTION 10
#1732773285264720-521: Is SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics), which is supported by Adobe Illustrator, but the two implementations are not fully compatible. Inkscape also exports to PS , EPS and PDF formats which Illustrator can recognize. A sidebar that appears at the left of the screen with a variety of tools to select, create, and manipulate objects or artworks in Illustrator. These tools can be selected as following: drawing, typing, painting, reshaping, slicing and cutting, symbolism, moving and zooming, and graph. Some tools have
780-524: Is almost identical, except for a slight alteration to the font and the color which is dark gray. The CS5 icon is also virtually the same, except that this time the logo is like a box, along with all the other CS5 product logos, with the "Ai" bright yellow. CS6 changed it a bit to a brown square with a yellow border and yellow lettering, and in CC 2014 the colors were upgraded to a sharper tone and thinner borders. Compatibility with Inkscape : Inkscape's native format
840-412: Is not possible to convert Type 1 losslessly to the TrueType format, although in practice it is often possible to do a lossless conversion from TrueType to Type 1. TrueType systems include a virtual machine that executes programs inside the font, processing the " hints " of the glyphs , in TrueType called “instructions”. These distort the control points which define the outline, with the intention that
900-665: Is one of several formats referred to as data-fork fonts, as they lack the classic Mac resource fork. TrueType Collection (TTC) is an extension of TrueType format that allows combining multiple fonts into a single file, creating substantial space savings for a collection of fonts with many glyphs in common. They were first available in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean versions of Windows, and supported for all regions in Windows 2000 and later. Classic Mac OS included support of TTC starting with Mac OS 8 .5. A TrueType Collection file begins with
960-519: Is the 29th generation in the product line. Adobe Illustrator was reviewed as the best vector graphics editing program in 2021 by hp Magazine . Development of Adobe Illustrator for the Apple Macintosh began in 1985 (shipping in January 1987) as Adobe's second software product after PostScript . Adobe co-founder and CEO John Warnock created Illustrator in late 1986 to automate many of
1020-399: Is used on classic Mac OS and macOS. It adds additional Apple-specific information. Like TTC, it can handle multiple fonts within a single file. But unlike TTC, those fonts need not be within the same family. Suitcases come in resource-fork and data-fork formats. The resource-fork version was the original suitcase format. Data-fork-only suitcases, which place the resource fork contents into
1080-584: The EPS or PDF formats. The .ai filename extension is used by Adobe Illustrator. The AI file format was originally a native format called PGF. PDF compatibility is achieved by embedding a complete copy of the PGF data within the saved PDF format file. This format is not related to .pgf using the same name Progressive Graphics Format . The same "dual path" approach as for PGF is used when saving EPS-compatible files in recent versions of Illustrator. Early versions of
1140-522: The OpenType extension to TrueType (since Mac OS X 10.0 and Windows 2000 ). While some fonts provided with the new operating systems are now in the OpenType format, most free or inexpensive third-party fonts use plain TrueType. Increasing resolutions and new approaches to screen rendering have reduced the requirement of extensive TrueType hinting. Apple's rendering approach on macOS ignores almost all
1200-475: The typesetting and logo graphic areas of design . Early magazine advertisements (featured in graphic design trade magazines such as Communication Arts ) referred to the product as "the Adobe Illustrator". Illustrator 88, the product name for version 1.7, was released in 1988 and introduced many new tools and features. Byte in 1989 listed Illustrator 88 as among the "Distinction" winners of
1260-578: The AI file format are true EPS files with a restricted, compact syntax, with additional semantics represented by Illustrator-specific DSC comments that conform to DSC's Open Structuring Conventions. These files are identical to their corresponding Illustrator EPS counterparts, but with the EPS procsets ( procedure sets ) omitted from the file and instead externally referenced using %%Include directives . The following formats are also supported: Illustrator Draw
SECTION 20
#17327732852641320-606: The Byte Awards, stating that with it Adobe had "pulled ahead" of previously industry-dominant competitor Aldus FreeHand . Early versions of the software did not support working in preview mode and users needed to have two windows open on their desktop in order to have a live preview of their work. One window would show the work in progress and the other window would show a preview of the work in progress. Although during its first decade Adobe developed Illustrator primarily for Macintosh, it sporadically supported other platforms. In
1380-720: The Freehand program. Instead, Adobe would provide tools and support to ease the transition to Illustrator. Illustrator CS3 included interface updates to the Control Bar, the ability to align individual points, multiple Crop Areas, the Color Guide panel and the Live Color feature among others. CS3 was released on March 27, 2007. CS4 was released in October 2008. It features a variety of improvements to old tools along with
1440-583: The Macintosh 3.0 version, and certainly not the equal of Windows' most popular illustration package CorelDRAW . (There were no versions 2.0 or 4.0 for the Macintosh—although, the second release for the Mac was titled Illustrator 88—the year of its release. And there was no version 6 for Windows.) Version 4 was, however, the first version of Illustrator to support editing in preview mode, which did not appear in
1500-491: The TrueType hinting virtual machine were patented by Apple, a fact not mentioned in the TrueType standards. (Patent holders who contribute to standards published by a major standards body such as ISO are required to disclose the scope of their patents, but TrueType was not such a standard.) FreeType 2 included an optional automatic hinter to avoid the patented technology, but these patents have now expired so FreeType 2.4 now enables these features by default. The outlines of
1560-525: The Type 1 format was open for anyone to use. Meanwhile, in exchange for TrueType, Apple got a license for TrueImage , a PostScript -compatible page-description language owned by Microsoft that Apple could use in laser printing . This was never actually included in any Apple products when a later deal was struck between Apple and Adobe, where Adobe promised to put a TrueType interpreter in their PostScript printer boards. Apple renewed its agreements with Adobe for
1620-488: The acquisition" because of Adobe's Illustrator software. As a result, Macromedia acquired Free Hand in 1995 from its original developer, Altsys , and continued its development through 2004. The difference in strengths between Photoshop and Illustrator became clear with the rise of the Internet, Illustrator was enhanced to support Web publishing, rasterization previewing, PDF , and SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics). Adobe
1680-513: The appearance of the artwork. There are different types of brushes: calligraphic, scatter, art, pattern, and bristle. Pen tools create straight and curved lines for the artwork and they can add anchor points to paths and delete from paths. Pencil tools allow the user to draw and edit freehand lines. The Adobe Illustrator Artwork format is the native Illustrator file format. It is a proprietary file format developed by Adobe Systems for representing single-page vector-based drawings in either
1740-495: The backing store of characters necessary for spell checkers and text searching. However, the lack of user-friendly tools for making TrueType GX fonts meant there were no more than a handful of GX fonts. Much of the technology in TrueType GX, including variations and substitution, lives on as AAT ( Apple Advanced Typography ) in macOS . Few font-developers outside Apple attempt to make AAT fonts; instead, OpenType has become
1800-477: The characters (or glyphs ) in TrueType fonts are made of straight line segments and quadratic Bézier curves . These curves are mathematically simpler and faster to process than cubic Bézier curves, which are used both in the PostScript -centered world of graphic design and in Type 1 fonts. However, most shapes require more points to describe with quadratic curves than cubics. This difference also means that it
1860-503: The cloud, and integration with Behance (a creative collaborative network), as well as other features such as a new touch-compatible type tool, images in brushes, CSS extraction, and files packaging. Starting with version 1.0, Adobe chose to license an image of Sandro Botticelli 's " The Birth of Venus " from the Bettmann Archive and use the portion containing Venus' face as Illustrator's branding image. John Warnock desired
Adobe Illustrator - Misplaced Pages Continue
1920-424: The core fonts being bundled with PostScript equipment at the time. This included the fonts that are standard with Windows to this day: Times New Roman (compatible with Times Roman), Arial (compatible with Helvetica) and Courier New (compatible with Courier). In this context, "compatible" means two things. On an aesthetic level, it means that the fonts are similar in appearance. On a functional level, it means that
1980-562: The dominant sfnt format, and all of the font variation technology is the de facto standard today in OpenType Variations. To ensure its wide adoption, Apple licensed TrueType to Microsoft for free. Microsoft added TrueType into the Windows 3.1 operating environment. In partnership with their contractors, Monotype Imaging , Microsoft put a lot of effort into creating a set of high quality TrueType fonts that were compatible with
2040-461: The early 1990s, Adobe released versions of Illustrator for Display PostScript licensees NeXT , Digital Equipment Corporation Ultrix, Silicon Graphics IRIX, and Sun Solaris platforms, but they were discontinued due to poor market acceptance. The first version of Illustrator for Windows, version 2.0, was released in early 1989 and flopped. The next Windows version, version 4.0, was widely criticized as being too similar to Illustrator 1.1 instead of
2100-467: The edges of fonts at the expense of a slight blurring, and more recently subpixel rendering (the Microsoft implementation goes by the name ClearType ), which exploits the pixel structure of LCD based displays to increase the apparent resolution of text. Microsoft has heavily marketed ClearType, and sub-pixel rendering techniques for text are now widely used on all platforms. Microsoft also developed
2160-463: The features of Adobe Illustrator, yet it was a free download. This allowed professionals to sketch and ideate "on the go" and allowed anyone to access world-class vector drawing capabilities. As a result, Facebook and social media posts appeared from all over the world with vector drawings from Adobe Ideas from pros and novices alike. Version CS6 was the 16th generation of Adobe Illustrator. Adobe added many more features and several bug fixes such as
2220-438: The font developer to make major changes (e.g., the point at which the entire font's main stems jump from 1 to 2 pixels wide) most of the way through development. Creating a very well-instructed TrueType font remains a significant amount of work, despite the increased user-friendliness of programs for adding instructions to fonts. Many TrueType fonts therefore have only rudimentary instructions, or have them automatically applied by
2280-447: The font editor, with results of various quality. The TrueType format allows for the most basic type of digital rights management – an embeddable flag field that specifies whether the author allows embedding of the font file into things like PDF files and websites. Anyone with access to the font file can directly modify this field, and simple tools exist to facilitate modifying it (obviously, modifying this field does not modify
2340-400: The font license and does not give extra legal rights). These tools have been the subject of controversy over potential copyright issues. Apple has implemented a proprietary extension to allow color .ttf files for its emoji font Apple Color Emoji . A basic font is composed of multiple tables specified in its header. A table name can have up to 4 letters. A .ttf extension indicates
2400-448: The font), and encapsulation of code into functions. Special instructions called delta instructions are the lowest level control, moving a control point at just one pixel size. The hallmark of effective TrueType glyph programming techniques is that it does as much as possible using variables defined just once in the whole font (e.g., stem widths, cap height , x-height ). This means avoiding delta instructions as much as possible. This helps
2460-476: The fonts have the same character widths. This allows documents which have been typeset in one font to be changed to the other, without reflow . Microsoft and Monotype technicians used TrueType's hinting technology to ensure that these fonts did not suffer from the problem of illegibility at low resolutions, which had previously forced the use of bitmapped fonts for screen display. Subsequent advances in technology have introduced first anti-aliasing, which smooths
Adobe Illustrator - Misplaced Pages Continue
2520-501: The hints in a TrueType font, while Microsoft's ClearType ignores many hints, and according to Microsoft, works best with "lightly hinted" fonts. The FreeType project of David Turner has created an independent implementation of the TrueType standard (as well as other font standards in FreeType 2). FreeType is included in many Linux distributions. Until May 2010, there were potential patent infringements in FreeType 1 because parts of
2580-543: The introduction of a few brand-new tools acquired from FreeHand. The ability to create multiple artboards is one of CS4's main additions from Freehand. The artboards allow you to create multiple versions of a piece of work within a single document. Other tools include the Blob Brush, which allows multiple overlapping vector brush strokes to easily merge or join, and a revamped gradient tool allowing for more in-depth color manipulation as well as transparency in gradients. CS5
2640-598: The launch of TrueType GX in 1994, with additional tables in the sfnt which formed part of QuickDraw GX . This offered powerful extensions in two main areas. First was font axes (today known as variations), for example allowing fonts to be smoothly adjusted from light to bold or from narrow to extended — competition for Adobe's " multiple master " technology. Second was Line Layout Manager, where particular sequences of characters can be coded to flip to different designs in certain circumstances, useful for example to offer ligatures for "fi", "ffi", "ct", etc. while maintaining
2700-518: The manual tasks utilized by his wife, Marva, a graphic designer. It used lines and bézier curves to render infinitely scalable graphics. Illustrator was released in early 1987, and became a commercialization of Adobe's in-house font development software and PostScript file format. Adobe Illustrator is the companion product of Adobe Photoshop . Photoshop is primarily geared toward digital photo manipulation and photorealistic styles of computer illustration , while Illustrator provides results in
2760-405: The operating system, it became a de facto standard for anyone involved in desktop publishing . Anti-aliased rendering, combined with Adobe applications' ability to zoom in to read small type, and further combined with the now open PostScript Type 1 font format, provided the impetus for an explosion in font design and in desktop publishing of newspapers and magazines. Apple extended TrueType with
2820-631: The rasterizer produce fewer undesirable features on the glyph. Each glyph's instruction set takes account of the size (in pixels) at which the glyph is to be displayed, as well as other less important factors of the display environment. Although incapable of receiving input and producing output as normally understood in programming, the TrueType instruction language does offer the other prerequisites of programming languages: conditional branching (IF statements), looping an arbitrary number of times (FOR- and WHILE-type statements), variables (although these are simply numbered slots in an area of memory reserved by
2880-449: The same year as the CS2 release, Adobe Systems announced an agreement to acquire Macromedia in a stock swap valued at about $ 3.4 billion and it integrated the companies' operations, networks, and customer-care organizations shortly thereafter. Adobe now owned Freehand along with the entire Macromedia product line and in 2007, Adobe announced that it would discontinue development and updates to
2940-541: The time, many users had already invested considerable money in Adobe's still proprietary Type 1 fonts. As part of Apple's tactic of opening the font format versus Adobe's desire to keep it closed to all but Adobe licensees, Apple licensed TrueType to Microsoft . When TrueType and the license to Microsoft was announced, John Warnock , co-founder and then CEO of Adobe, gave an impassioned speech in which he claimed Apple and Microsoft were selling snake oil , and then announced that
3000-412: The traditional 2D vector editors, as they share some common concepts and tools. TrueType TrueType is an outline font standard developed by Apple in the late 1980s as a competitor to Adobe 's Type 1 fonts used in PostScript . It has become the most common format for fonts on the classic Mac OS , macOS , and Microsoft Windows operating systems. The primary strength of TrueType
3060-512: The use of PostScript in its printers, resulting in lower royalty payments to Adobe, who was beginning to license printer controllers capable of competing directly with Apple's LaserWriter printers. Part of Adobe 's response to learning that TrueType was being developed was to create the Adobe Type Manager software to scale Type 1 fonts for anti-aliased output on-screen. Although ATM initially cost money, rather than coming free with
SECTION 50
#17327732852643120-766: The user interface with regard to path editing (and also to converge on the same user interface as Adobe Photoshop ), and many users opted not to upgrade. Illustrator also began to support TrueType , effectively ending the "font wars" between PostScript Type 1 and TrueType. Like Photoshop, Illustrator also began supporting plug-ins, greatly and quickly extending its abilities. With true user interface parity between Macintosh and Windows versions starting with 7.0, designers could finally standardize on Illustrator. Corel did port CorelDRAW FreeHand still not available in Illustrator (higher scaling percentages, advanced find-and-replace feature, selective round-corner editing, export/print selected objects only, etc.). Famously, Aldus made
3180-1145: Was a free-form vector drawing app for Android and iOS users. Along with Illustrator, it is currently marketed by Adobe through Creative Cloud . Drawings made with the Illustrator Draw app can be exported to the desktop programs of Adobe Illustrator. As of 2022, Illustrator Draw is retired and replaced by Adobe Fresco . Final version to include built-in support for complete Pantone color books. Mockup (beta) of art on objects; edit text within images with Retype (beta); Smooth slider unembed multiple images; Links panel adds Delete button Vector graphics editor Vector editors are often contrasted with bitmap editors , and their capabilities complement each other. Vector editors are often better for page layout , typography , logos , sharp-edged artistic illustrations (e.g. cartoons , clip art , complex geometric patterns), technical illustrations , diagramming and flowcharting . Bitmap editors are more suitable for retouching, photo processing, photorealistic illustrations, collage , and illustrations drawn by hand with
3240-626: Was an early developer of SVG for the web and Illustrator exported SVG files via the SVG File Format plugin. Using the Adobe SVG Viewer (ASV), introduced in 2000, allowed users to view SVG images in most major browsers until it was discontinued in 2009. Native support for SVG was not complete in all major browsers until Internet Explorer 9 in 2011. Illustrator Version 9 included a tracing feature, similar to that within Adobe's discontinued product Streamline . Illustrator version 10
3300-678: Was developed and eventually released as TrueType with the launch of Mac System 7 in May 1991. The initial TrueType outline fonts, four-weight families of Times Roman , Helvetica , Courier , and the pi font "Symbol" replicated the original PostScript fonts of the Apple LaserWriter. Apple also replaced some of their bitmap fonts used by the graphical user-interface of previous Macintosh System versions (including Geneva, Monaco and New York) with scalable TrueType outline-fonts. For compatibility with older systems, Apple shipped these fonts,
3360-429: Was originally that it offered font developers a high degree of control over precisely how their fonts are displayed, right down to particular pixels , at various font sizes. With widely varying rendering technologies in use today, pixel-level control is no longer certain in a TrueType font. TrueType was known during its development stage, first by the codename "Bass" and later on by the codename "Royal". The system
3420-581: Was released by Adobe in November 2001. Illustrator CS (also called version 11), released by Adobe for Mac and Windows in October 2003, was the first version to include 3-dimensional capabilities allowing users to extrude or revolve shapes to create simple 3D objects. Illustrator CS2 (version 12), released by Adobe in April 2005, was available for both the Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows operating systems. It
3480-456: Was released in April 2010. Along with a number of enhancements to existing functionality, Illustrator CS5's new features include a Perspective Grid tool taken from FreeHand, a Bristle Brush (for more natural and painterly looking strokes) and a comprehensive update to strokes, referred to by Adobe as "Beautiful Strokes". In 2011 the Adobe Illustrator team developed a vector drawing app for iPad and iPhone , called Adobe Ideas. The app had many of
3540-655: Was replaced (albeit still accessible via easter egg ) in Illustrator CS (11.0) and CS2 (12.0) by a stylized flower to conform to the Creative Suite's nature imagery. In CS3, Adobe changed the suite branding once again, to simple colored blocks with two-letter abbreviations, resembling a periodic table of elements . Illustrator was represented by the letters Ai in white against an orange background (oranges and yellows were prominent color schemes in Illustrator branding going back as far as version 4.0). The CS4 icon
3600-497: Was the last version for the Mac which did not run natively on Intel processors. Among the new features included in Illustrator CS2 were Live Trace, Live Paint, a control palette and custom workspace. Live Trace allows for the conversion of bitmap imagery into vector art and improved upon the previous tracing abilities. Live Paint allows users more flexibility in applying color to objects, specifically those that overlap. In
#263736