Create Illustrator actions
Changing file size, converting text to outlines, saving files for the Web—these routine Adobe® Illustrator® tasks consume hours that could otherwise be spent being creative. Instead of trekking to the menu bar or invoking the keyboard shortcuts, you can tell Illustrator to automate the process by using Actions.
Despite their utility, many illustrators don't bother to learn Actions, instead relying on hard-earned habits to pull them through. But, as Illustrator expert Deke McClelland points out, Actions are one of those devices that once mastered you wonder how you did without them.
The Actions palette, shown in Figure 1, allows you to display its actions in either the Default mode or the Button mode. Default mode allows you to see every detail of every entry, should you so desire, and make some further refinements to those entries as well. Button mode shows only the action names, as shown on the right of Figure 1. Although it provides no details, Button mode can show you more actions at once.
Figure 1: Within the Actions palette, you an choose to display the actions and set hierarchies or just display the action buttons.
Note:It’s human nature, or maybe the semi-Pavlovian response that passes for it in this technical age, to want to double-click on something to make it work. Double-clicking on the name of an action to run it will only, frustratingly, bring up its puny Options dialog box, so you will quickly be cured of the temptation to do this.
Creating a New Action
Before you construct an action anew, you should give some thought to what kind of action you want to make. Illustrator lets you create two types of actions: the construction action and the modifying action.
The construction action is a self-contained action that creates objects from scratch and requires nothing of you except your desire to use the action. Construction actions are useful when you want to create the exact same object over and over (for example, if you always need a rounded rectangle at a certain size). But construction actions limit you to exactly the same object each time.
The modifying action is designed to make changes to an existing path. Before you execute a modifying action, you must first create the path that you want the action to modify, and select that path before you play the action. I like the modifying actions more because they are more flexible and allow me to consistently transform whatever path I choose to use as a starting point. In the example below, I’ve designed an action that’s intended to give selected text a spiky effect.
Getting Organized
The Actions palette is your headquarters for action design, but it also lets you organize your actions into folders or directories called sets. Illustrator’s preset actions are all stored in the set called Default Actions. When you create a new action, you can choose to add it to the Default Action set, or you can create a new set that better reflects the nature of your new action. To create a new set, either click the New Set button located at the bottom of the Actions palette or choose the New Set command from the palette’s pop-up menu. Either way, you see the New Set dialog box. You have but one decision to make with this dialog box: what to name the set. Since the action that I’m going to create is one that modifies text, I’ll call the new set “Text Modifiers.”
Actions are available to all new documents, not only to the document that was open when they were created.
Recording an Action
In recording an action, you show Illustrator all the steps you want it to follow. For my example, I first created a line of point text and then selected it with the arrow tool. Figure 2 shows the text I’m using as my starting object. The content and font of the text are completely open-ended, since they have no bearing on the action. But since the action I’m going to make will be designed for 72-point type, I’ll set its size to 72 points in the Character palette.
Figure 2: This 72-point text is the starting point for the action that I'm about to record. I'll modify this text to show Illustrator the steps involved in the action.
Now that my “raw material” is ready, it’s time to start designing and recording.
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Click the New Action button, or choose the New Action command from the palette menu.
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Click the Record button, or press Enter (Return on the Mac).
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Set the fill to None and give it an 8-point black stroke.
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Convert the text to paths by choosing the Type > Create Outlines command.
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Choose Object > Transform > Move.
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Click the Copy button.
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Change the stroke attributes.
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Change the color to 90 percent black.
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Choose Object > Transform > Transform Again.
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Reduce the stroke to 7, and change the stroke’s color to 80 percent black.
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Repeat the last two steps six more times.
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Click on the Stop button located at the bottom of the Actions palette.
The New Action dialog box will display, as shown in Figure 3. Here you name the action and choose the set in which it should reside. I named this action “Spike Effect 72pt” and directed it to the Text Modifiers set that I created above. If you think you’re going use the action often and want it to have its own keyboard shortcut, you can assign it a function key. If you display your Action palette in the Button mode, you can choose a color for the action’s button.
Figure 3: In the New Action dialog box, you can name your action and choose the set to which it belongs.
Bear in mind that Illustrator already has shortcuts for all the function keys, so if you choose a shortcut for your action, be sure to also check either or both the Shift and Command check boxes. Otherwise, you could lose a preset shortcut.
Illustrator will add your new action to the set you specified and start recording, as shown in Figure 4. When Illustrator is recording, the Record button changes from black to red. Now any changes I make will become part of the Spike Effect 72pt action.
Figure 4: The Actions palette now ready and rearing to record the new Spike Effect 72pt action.
The number of steps that Illustrator assigns to this task and the nature of the individual steps depend entirely on how you go about changing the fill and stroke. Don’t worry about it, since you can streamline the action after you’re done recording it. I discuss this in an upcoming section, “Changing an Action.”
Or press Ctrl+Shift+O (Cmd-Shift-O on the Mac).
I entered –0.5 into the Horizontal and 1 into the Vertical option boxes. This nudges the paths up 1 point and to the left 0.5 point.
A slightly displaced clone appears in front of the original.
I changed the stroke to a dash pattern with a 0-point dash and a 10-point gap and selected round caps and joins.
Now I have my 90 percent black clones covering the original 8-point black paths.
Or simply press Ctrl+D (Cmd-D on the Mac) to repeat the move and copy transformation.
This second copy is slightly lighter and smaller than the first.
This means that each time I pressed Ctrl+D (Cmd-D on the Mac) I reduced the stroke by 1 point and lightened its color by 10 percent.
The action is complete.
The top line of Figure 5 shows the modifications that I made to my original path. To repeat all these steps by hand to a new bit of point text would take me almost as long as it took to create the Spike Effect 72pt action. But now that it’s recorded, the actions will re-create the effect in just a few seconds. In the bottom portion of Figure 25.5, I created a new line of text and applied the Spike Effect 72pt action. It took Illustrator about 6 seconds to spike up this new line.
Figure 5: The top line is the end result of the changes I made to the original line of text. The bottom line is that result of Illustrator applying the action that I just created.
