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Adobe Illustrator is a program used to create graphics, primarily vector-based printed projects such as posters. It can be complemented with the raster-oriented Photoshop. The latest version is Illustrator 11.
Illustrator is installed on all computers in the MagicLab and MacLab.
If you are interested in purchasing, consult Adobe's education purchasing page.
Create a new document. Make sure all possible text and graphics are in vector format and that any raster images are as small (in terms of file size) as possible. These steps are necessary to prevent the document from being larger than the printer can handle. Save the final result in PDF format. The PDF format is universal and ensures that the document will be printed accurately.
Determine the size of your poster. The printer in Printing and Mailing prints on 36" rolls of paper, so at least one of the dimensions of your poster should be no more than 36 inches.
Keep in mind that the larger the poster, the more care will be required in keeping your file size small so that the final result is printable. Use PDF and EPS formatted imports when possible.
Set the page size to match the final size of your poster. To change the document size, go to Document Info under the File Menu. Save it as a PDF and burn it to a CD-R or Zip disk? (or save it in your webpub folder) for printing and mailing services to read).
Elements within your poster (text, figures, pictures) can be stored in either vector form or a raster form. Whenever possible you want your elements to be in vector form. Sadly it isn't always obvious which form you've got. Vector elements are stored (interanlly by the comptuer) as mathematical representations of lines and circles and rectangles and other such shapes. This sort of representation is quite space efficient and also can be scaled larger and smaller and maintain its pleasant appearance. In contrast raster elements are stored as colors within a fixed grid. A lot of space is required to stor eall these grid elements and if the graphic is scaled up the underlying grid becomes visible and your graphic gets blocky and ugly. Most of the familiar 'graphics' formats are raster: jpeg, gif, tiff, bmp. To confuse things further most "vector" file formats are capable of holding raster as well as vector bits within them. We'd encourage you to stick with the EPS format for vector images (or the very similiar PDF format for those programs that can create it). Thus, save your imports as EPS or PDF when you can.
Pictures, either from a digital camera, a scanner, or an BMP or JPEG found online, are fundamentally raster. As such they can be quite large. It's entirely possible that a reasonable collection of raster pictures may simply be too large to print even if they can all be successfully brought into Illustrator. Reduce the resolution in Photoshop and save your image as JPEG.
For more technical information, go to Wikipedia:vector_graphics.
Elements within your poster (text, figures, pictures) can be stored in either vector form or a raster form. Whenever possible you want your elements to be in vector form. Sadly it isn't always obvious which form you've got. Vector elements are stored (interanlly by the comptuer) as mathematical representations of lines and circles and rectangles and other such shapes. This sort of representation is quite space efficient and also can be scaled larger and smaller and maintain its pleasant appearance. In contrast raster elements are stored as colors wihtin a fixed grid. A lot of space is required to stor eall these grid elements and if the graphic is scaled up the underlying grid becomes visible and your graphic gets blocky and ugly. Most of the faimlir 'graphics' formats are raster: jpeg, gif, tiff, bmp. To confuse things further most "vector" file formats are capable of holding raster as well as vector bits within them. We'd encourage you to stick with the EPS format for vector images (or hte very similiar PDF format for those programs that can create it). Thus, save your imports as EPS or PDF when you can.
Pictures-taken with a digital camera or sacnned are fundamentally raster. As such they can be quite large. It's entirely possible that a reasonable collection of raster pictures may simply be too large to print even if they can all be successfully brought into Illustrator. Reduce the resolution in Photoshop and save your image as JPEG.
For more technical information, go to Wikipedia:raster.
Printing binary from TCP/IP or USB is not supported on HP Laserjet printers. Try printing the Illustrator document as ASCII. When printing from Adobe Illustrator, if the printer prints unexpected multiple pages of garbled text, symbols, or blank pages instead of the image, this is because you are sending binary encoded data to a printer that is expecting ASCII from a TCP/IP or USB connection. You can use this option to render the pags as ASCII data before sending them to the printer, and bypassing the binary-encoded-related problems. Some print drivers do not support binary-encoded files. Choose Encoding from the Print menu to fix this problem. If on a Mac, go to Print--> Send ASCII image data instead of Send binary image data.
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