- Perspective Drawing
- Variable-Width Strokes
- New Bristle Brush and Other Brush Improvements
- Enhanced Strokes: Dashed-Line Adjustments, Precise Arrowheads
- Shape Builder Tool
- Multiple Artboard Enhancements
- Drawing Enhancements: Joining Paths, Select Behind, Draw Behind, Draw Inside
- Roundtrip Editing with Adobe Flash Catalyst CS5
- Symbol Enhancements
- Crisp Graphics for Web and Mobile Devices
- Summary
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Like this article? We recommend
Like this article? We recommend
Multiple Artboard Enhancements
Multiple artboards was one of the bigger new features in Illustrator CS4—a revelation that provided great new options, but also left users wanting more. The good news is that "more" is here in CS5. The multiple-artboards functionality has been enhanced significantly, thanks in part to the new Artboards panel, which allows you to add artboards, reorder or rearrange them, and create duplicate artboards (see Figure 7). You can specify custom names for your artboards by using the Control panel or the Artboards panel.
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Figure 7 The artboards feature has been greatly enhanced in CS5, with new features like the Artboards panel, renaming each artboard, reordering artboards, and more.
Other great artboard enhancements include being able to edit artboard sizes while specifying the reference point. This change may seem trivial, but try adding an inch to just the top of an artboard in Illustrator CS4.
You can copy an object from one artboard and then paste it into the same location on another artboard by using the new Paste in Place command (Edit > Paste In Place). Another helpful new command is the Paste On All Artboards option, which allows you to paste artwork on all artboards in the same location.
If you've used previous versions of Illustrator, you may notice that the artboard ruler origin in Illustrator CS5 (also called the zero,zero point) and its coordinates are now positioned in the upper-left corner of each artboard independently. These are referred to as local, artboard-specific rulers. The measurements for each artboard are independent by default. If you try to position an object using the Transform panel or other methods, you'll notice that a positive value positions the selected content on the artboard (in the direction of the bottom of the Document window), and a negative value does the opposite. You still can choose to work with a global ruler that provides coordinates across all your artboards, as in previous versions of Illustrator.