From the course: Illustrator CS5 One-on-One: Advanced

Unlock the full course today

Join today to access over 22,400 courses taught by industry experts or purchase this course individually.

How symbols work

How symbols work - Illustrator Tutorial

From the course: Illustrator CS5 One-on-One: Advanced

Start my 1-month free trial

How symbols work

The subject of this chapter is symbols. Save the piece of artwork as a symbol and you can replicate it as many times as you like. Those copies, called instances remain linked to the symbol. Modify the symbol and all instances updating kind. Symbols offer three advantages; first if you're preparing artwork for Flash, they make your files more efficient. Second, you have 9-slice scaling that means you can specify how an object scales, so that certain parts remain fixed while other parts stretch or squish and third, symbols are fantastic for repeating artwork. Need to update a bunch of cell phone icons on your company's site? Goodbye iPhones, hello androids or vice versa plus you can use the Symbol Sprayer tool to paint a pattern of artwork in a single brushstroke and some of Illustrator's best features require symbols to work their magic. Did I see three advantages? Apparently, I meant five. See, they're reproducing already. Here's how they work.

Contents