The new Illustrator CC 2017 interface

- [Instructor] So as I was saying in my live action intro, Illustrator CC is a work in progress, meaning that Adobe updates the program every few months or so. Which is generally a great thing because it means that we continually have access to the latest and greatest technology but it presents a challenge where teaching the program is concerned because it means that what you see in my videos and what you see on your screen may be somewhat different. For example, with Illustrator CC 2017, Adobe has released an update that changed some of its on screen appearance.

That is to say they revamped the interface, which frankly presented us with one of two options: re record literally hundreds of movies or offer you this up front movie in which I explain the differences that you might encounter. Not surprisingly we went with the latter. In other words I'm going to introduce you to the new interface right now, right up front. So the first thing you'll notice is the so called flat tools which differs slightly from the previous appearance. Specifically notice the two arrow tools here which Illustrator calls the selection tool and the direct selection tool.

They used to have stems but their stems have been lopped off, both where the tool icons are concerned and for the cursor as well. Now these guys right here, the pen tool and the curvature tool, they look pretty much the way they did before. However you'll notice if you select the pen tool that its cursor is now black. Now between you and me I think the tool looks like it's been set on fire, however it works the same as it ever did. Now this guy is the shaper tool, which I talk about in Chapter 9. The second you select it you're going to see this tutorial right here.

Clearly it's up to you whether you check it out or not. In my case however I'm going to go ahead and click on the close button. If you click and hold on the shaper tool you'll see that it shares a fly out menu along with the pencil tool which I talk about in Chapter 10. In Chapter 11 I talk about the eraser tool, which used to look like a pink pearl eraser and now I guess looks like a mechanical eraser but again it works the same as it ever has. And then down here this tiny page is the art board tool which we'll talk about in Chapter 2.

The hot links up here in the control panel are now white where they used to be orange. These numerical fields such as the one representing the line weight, initially look dark but they light up as soon as you click inside of them. A few icons have changed as well and by way of example I'll switch back to my selection tool here and I'll click on the word Illustrator in order to select it and then I'll click on this transform link, again it's now white instead of orange, and notice this link icon right here. It still looks like a kind of chain, it's just a different looking change than we had back in the previous version.

Something else you'll notice is these large tabs, both at the top of the open document and at the top of these panels right here. They're large by default and the idea is that helps out people who are using touch tablets like Microsoft Surface books. However, if you'd like to free up a little room on screen, you can make those tabs smaller by going up to the Edit menu, that's going to be the Illustrator menu on the Mac. Dropping down to the Preferences command, which is not nearly so low in the menu on the Mac, and then choosing User Interface.

And now notice this check box right here, the second you turn it off your tabs will become smaller, at which point you can click okay. Alright now let's say I make a change to this document, such as dragging the word Illustrator over to the right, and then I close the document at which point Illustrator will invite me to save my changes. Adobe has modified these dialog boxes ever so slightly, including rounding off the buttons. In my case however I'm just going to cancel out. And finally if you have something selected inside your document and you zoom in by pressing Ctrl + here in the PC or Cmd + on the Mac, Illustrator centers your zoom on the selection, both as you zoom in as I say by pressing Ctrl or Cmd +, or when you zoom out by pressing Ctrl or Cmd -.

Now the good news is with the exception of that zoom behavior these changes are purely cosmetic, by which I mean the various tools, buttons, icons and widgets work exactly the same as I demonstrate throughout the following movies. And so with that I welcome you one and all to Adobe Illustrator CC 2017, one-on-one.