Introduction to Adobe Illustrator CS2

Interface Overview

If you are coming from Photoshop to Illustrator, you’ll find familiar faces in the Tool bar and floating palettes. Whether you’re new to the Photoshop/Illustrator interface or just need to acclimate to Illustrator’s set of features, it’s worth taking some time to get familiar with the interface.

Palettes:

Illustrator features are found both in the “Window” menu or the floating sets of tools called palettes. In many cases, the function that you find on the menu structure can overlap the palettes. You can access a feature by clicking “Windows” from the menu bar. As you select a palette, it appears on the screen.
By clicking the different tabs on the palettes, you can access the different features of function.

Tool Bar

The illustrator Tool bar includes selection tools, editing tools, drawing and painting tools, viewing tools, etc. We will learn how to use different tools later in this tutorial. Click the Tool Bar to select a tool. By clicking and holding down the mouse button on the toolbox with a triangle at the bottom right corner, you can find the additional hidden tools.