Illustrator® CS5 Bible

Chapter 1. What's New in Illustrator CS5?

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Enhanced strokes and brushes

• Path join enhancements

• Select Behind

• Drawing modes

• Perspective grid

• The new Artboards panel

• Artboard rulers

• Gradient mesh point transparency

• Shape Builder tool

• Symbol enhancements

• Flash XML graphics

• Align to Pixel grid

• Resolution independent effects

It's always exciting to see what's new in new versions of your favorite software. Longtime Adobe Illustrator fans certainly have a great interest in learning about the changes in Illustrator CS5, but those changes aren't of interest only to people who've used Illustrator extensively in the past. New users and people who currently use other products also want to know if this new version adds must-have functionality.

In this chapter, I introduce all the enhancements and fixes as well as the single new feature that has been added to Illustrator CS5. Fortunately, Illustrator CS5 maintains a strong connection with the past so that you don't have to relearn much at all. Most of these changes are minor enhancements to existing functionality, and the Perspective Grid feature is very specialized.

Enhanced Strokes and Brushes

In the past, strokes were always the limited functionality add-on to fills: Want to surround an object with a frame? Use a stroke. Need to outline text? Use a stroke. But strokes have always had limitations, the most common being that they were a constant width; if you wanted a stroke to taper from one size to another along its length, you needed to use ...