Cool Extras

The Cool Extras folder contains Illustrator CS2 sample files and templates to get you started on projects quickly. Hint: You can preview those files directly in Adobe Bridge. Click Browse Cool Extras on the Welcome screen (choose Help > Welcome screen).

Inside the Sample files folder you’ll find:

• Graph designs: Do you need to prepare an important presentation? Fourteen different graph samples, complete with 48 different column and marker designs, can add that extra polish with professional-looking pie charts, line graphs, and bar graphs.
• Sample Art: Check out some graphics showcasing the great new features in this release as well as a few Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) sample files. SVG is an open standard vector format for interactive graphics. To see these SVG samples in action, open the corresponding HTML file in your Web browser.

Templates

Inside the Templates folder, you’ll find over 15 different theme sets, covering a wide range of project types — from restaurant menus to promotional materials for an indie rock band to business presentations (in Japanese!).

Here are a few highlights:

• Artist: Business card, portfolio card, letterhead and envelopes, Web site, and CD booklets and labels
• Band: Bumper stickers, t-shirts, press kit cover, CD labels and tray cards, newsletter, and Web site
• Blank Templates: Brochures, banner ads, folders, table tents, DVD menus, and much more
• Club: Flyers, posters, matchbooks, handbills, menus, ads, and gift certificates
• Daycare: Brochures, calendars, name tags, notepads, stickers, rate cards, and more
• Environmental: Envelopes, postcards, brochures, and business cards
• Event Planning: Banner ads, DVD labels, coasters, and postcards
• Extreme Sports: Hang tags, media folders, stickers, t-shirts, and banner ads
• Film: Posters, tickets, schedules, postcards, flyers, and mailers
• Japanese Templates: Business cards, restaurants, presentations, and more
• Party: Signage, invitations, t-shirts, posters, and even party hats
• Restaurant: Takeout menus, cocktail menus, matchbooks, coasters, gift certificates, and more
• Retail: Shopping bags, hang tags, POP display, and shelf talkers
• Spa: Services menu, postcard, signage, and shopping bag
• Travel: Brochures, note cards, rate cards, name tags, and more

Demonstrator

You already know that Illustrator CS2 has a ton of amazing new features, but wouldn’t it be great if there were an easy way to see them in action? Better yet, how about if the software itself could show you what is new, guiding you through each step of the user interface?

The Demonstrator utility harnesses the powerful scripting abilities of Illustrator to do just that. To get started, simply bring up your Welcome screen (Help > Welcome Screen) and click “Show me what’s new.”

There are six separate modules, covering details on the Control palette, Live Paint, and Live Trace.

And because Demonstrator is working inside Illustrator itself, you can stop the tour at any time, explore the user interface, and check out the nuances of the workspace — you can even edit the sample files if you wish. To resume, simply press the Play button.

Fonts

Several OpenType® fonts are included with Illustrator CS2. The following fonts are installed for your convenience:

• Adobe Caslon™ Pro
• Adobe Garamond® Pro
• Minion® Pro
• Bernhard Modern Std
• Century Old Style Std
• Trajan® Pro
• Chaparral® Pro
• Nueva® Std
• Myriad® Pro
• Myriad Std
• Letter Gothic Std
• News Gothic Std
• Courier Std
• Prestige Elite Std
• Lithos® Pro

• Birch® Std
• Mesquite® Std
• Rosewood® Std
• Viva® Std
• Stencil Std
• Giddyup® Std
• Brush Script Std
• Adobe Wood Type®
• Ornaments Std
• Minion Std Black
• OCR-A
• Kozuka Mincho® Pro (Japan)
• Kozuka Gothic® Pro (Japan)
• Adobe Myungjo (Korea)

These fonts are installed in the following locations:

• Mac OS X: [startup drive]/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Fonts
• Windows: [startup drive]\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Fonts

Plug-ins

Plug-in modules are small software programs that extend or add features to Illustrator. A number of special effects plug-ins are automatically installed in the Plug-ins folder inside the Illustrator CS2 folder.

For complete details on available effects and how to use them, see the “Summary of effects and filters” section in the Help system of your application (type “effects” into the Search field). Among the dozens of really cool effects are:

• Artistic filters and effects such as Colored Pencil, Fresco, Neon Glow, Palette Knife, Plastic Wrap, Smudge Stick, Sponge, and Watercolor
• Brush Strokes filters and effects such as Accented Edges, Angled, Spatter, and Sumi-e (paints an image in Japanese style as would a wet brush full of black ink on rice paper)
• Distort effects such as Diffuse Glow (renders an image as if it were being viewed through a soft diffusion filter), Glass (makes an image appear as if it were being viewed through different types of glass), and Ocean Ripple (adds randomly spaced ripples to the artwork, making the artwork look as if it were underwater)
• Sketch filters such as Bas Relief (makes an image appear carved in low relief), Chalk & Charcoal, Chrome, Conté Crayon, Graphic Pen, Note Paper, and Plaster
• Texture effects such as Craquelure (paints an image onto a high-relief plaster surface, producing a fine network of cracks that follow the contours of the image), Mosaic Tiles, Patchwork, and Stained Glass
• Video filters and effects such as De_Interlace, to smooth out moving images, and NTSC Colors, to restrict the color gamut for television reproduction

Presets

Presets comprises a wide variety of useful tools, including actions, brushes, swatches, gradients, graphic styles, symbols, and more. Here are some highlights:

• Actions are a series of commands that you can record and play back on a single file or a batch of files. To explore the Default Action set, select the Actions palette (from the Window menu). You’ll find time-saving routines for Web graphics export options, applying opacity and filters, and more. In addition, thousands more actions are available for download in Adobe Studio Exchange.
• Brushes allow you to stylize the appearance of paths. Illustrator software's preset Brush Library includes Calligraphic, Scatter, Art, and Pattern brushes. You can customize these styles or even create your own custom brushes and share them with others.
• Gradients create a gradual blend between multiple colors. The gradient library contains a variety of blends for metals, pastels, special effects, and more.
• Graphic Styles allow you to quickly and consistently apply the same attributes to an object. For example, you can change fill and stroke color, alter transparency, and apply effects all in one step. Choose Open Graphic Style Library from the Graphic Styles palette to see great options for 3D effects and shapes, buttons and rollovers, textures, and much more.
• Patterns can be used to fill objects (fill patterns) or can be applied to a path with the Brushes palette (brush patterns). Illustrator comes with some really great patterns based on geometric, natural, and other decorative themes. Need to add a few zebra stripes? No problem.
• Swatches are available for over 25 color systems and applications including Web-safe palettes, PANTONE®, TRUMATCH, and more.
• Symbols are objects that you can reuse in a document. For example, if you create a symbol of a flower, then you can have multiple instances of that flower without adding the complex art each time. Illustrator’s Symbol Library (accessed via the Symbols palette) includes 25 sets, with hundreds of individual symbols covering a variety of themes such as nature, 3D symbols, Web icons, and even sushi.

Scripting

In addition to comprehensive scripting documentation, more than 50 time-saving sample scripts are included in AppleScript, Visual Basic, and JavaScript formats. Highlights include Save as PDF, Align Text, Collect for Output, Export to Flash, and even Calendar Creation.