You have the option to embed images into Adobe Illustrator or to link them. If you embed them, then your file will be large (a 500MB AI file is an everyday occurrence in my work). The other is to link to the image file, but if you hand the file off to another person, the linked images will not be stored with it. One option to is to have a central repository located on a network for images. All new images are placed there. This can sometimes be cumbersome not to have a copy of the image on your local machine–consider image manipulations and having to manage file versions centrally. This script solves the problem of collecting linked images for output. This script collects external image links into a single “Links” folder. You can then give that folder and the subsequent source file (AI) to another person and the external links will work.

Hopefully, you are not using Adobe Illustrator source files (AI) to pre-press print work, but if you are this will aid in collecting linked images for that purpose too.

Caveats

This script does not collect fonts or other files, only images. If your image is within an opacity mask this script will not be able to find it. Illustrator Package Script has been tested on Adobe Illustrator CS2 and Adobe Illustrator CS3 only.

I did not write this script. This script was written by Pavel Rassadin. You can download the original source for this Illustrator Package Script from his website.

The premise of my presentation was to show an overview of the process between layout in Illustrator and PhotoShop to coding in HTML and CSS. I find that web design is often segmented between the coders and graphic designers. I propose that the best outcome can come from bridging that gap. I do this in my daily workplace and try to show tips and techniques for others to bridge that gap. The time slot was only a half hour, so I could not go into coding detail, but only point to tutorials via links.

You can view the Graphic Web Design and Cascading Style Sheets PowerPoint (431KB) or view the presentation in HTML. Some support images and all sites discussed can be found on Delicious (theses are notated by “{link}” within the presentation).

One of my co-workers warned that I needed to completely remove CS3 preferences, plists, and all those other files that OS-X applications install but never remove!!! I finally found this Adobe Support page, Remove CS3 prerelease software (Creative Suite and individual applications). I figured that it would remove release software, too. I believe that it does, but be sure you know what you doing when you use it. This script runs from the terminal, so it mainly a UNIX shell script that deletes folders and files.

I am now back to Illustrator 13.0.0 instead of 13.0.2, but only after more than six hours of uninstalling and re-installing Adobe Creative Suite !

If you want only to move the text and not the 3.5″ x 2″ box, you will need to make the 3.5″ x 2″ box the “key object.” To do this, select both objects, then click the 3.5″ x 2″ box (not a Shift+click though). This will align all the other objects to the “key object” you just clicked.

–Stephen M. James
www.smjdesign.com

Illustrator CS2 will not let you gradient a Pantone (Spot Color). This makes since in the printing world, but if you are using Illustrator to layout a webpage, it is annoying. The answer is to change the Pantone swatch that is used in the gradient to a process color within the Swatch palette.

–Stephen M. James
www.smjdesign.com

And?¢‚Ǩ¬¶ Logo Action!

As the author opens, he says he had no cable for a year. I can relate. Whenever I am around a television at a friend’s house I have to watch the commercials. I analyze the editing the video and the effects, especially any graphical compositing.

–Stephen M. James
www.smjdesign.com