OT: Illustrator capabilities (was Re: [OS X TeX] OT: log from Acrobat 7.0)

[Jack Kuipers]

You are way over my depth in graphics, although, I made well over 100  
figures to represent
or simulate 3-space mathematical situations for my Quaternion Book.   
These did require
great care in achieving the proper perspective and sense. For this I  
used Aldus Superpaint (no need
for palm trees or crashing waves) whch did it well. But, about half  
way thru the book process Adobe
bought Aldus and promptly "killed" Superpaint. Illustrator cannot  
compete. I once challenged
Adobe hucksters at a Math Conference to draw my figures. They could  
not (at least, did not);
admittedly, there is a great distinction between "drawing" and  
"peddling - their primary interest."
I gave Illustrator an honest try --- I even bought it. Finally, gave  
it away.  BUT, ---

CAN YOU HELP ON THIS: Do you know of a package in TeXShop which will  
put a watermark
on the compiled output --- wich is then easily removed by removing  
the package? Several years
ago I used something with Textures that would put something "lightly"  
diagonally across the page.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.		Jack Kuipers



On Jul 26, 2006, at 8:06 AM, William Adams wrote:

> On Jul 25, 2006, at 4:23 PM, Jack Kuipers wrote:
>
>> May I interject --- the best graphics program (for me, having tried
>> them all)
>> is EAZY DRAW. 'Takes learning, but it will do anything you want.
>
> I don't believe that you know what I want in a drawing program.  Take
> a look at the list of tasks which I wanted to achieve in Illustrator
> --- it doesn't look like this program affords even half of what's
> needed to accomplish these things quickly.
>
> Looking at this program, I had the following issues after a quick  
> pass:
>
>   - it can't open a .eps or .pdf for editing
>   - There doesn't seem to be a bezier pen tool to allow one to create
> them directly (you have to create a different object and then convert)
>   - text boxes don't seem to have an inset option, there's no option
> for vertical centering or positioning text to align to the bottom of
> a rectangle, no option for hanging punctuation
>   - there's only one option for arrowheads
>   - dash options are limited to dash and a single dot
>   - there's no option to align to the page
>   - one can only have one page per document (Oh joy! if one uses it
> to create a stationery set one has to coordinate bits across three
> (or more) different files (letterhead, envelope, business card &c.)
>   - it can't interpret standard graphic-design-oriented dimensions
> (it thinks 3p6 is 36pts.)
>   - no options for aligning nodes
>   - it doesn't allow one to draw an element and then assign it as a
> brush to a path
>   - one can't ``erase'' portions of objects to sculpt them
> (Ever tried FutureWave SmartSketch or Creaturehouse Expression?)
>
> The interface is palette-laden and makes some ridiculous choices ---
> Detail is a document-specific drawer? Align right edges shifts some
> elements to the left? (the norm is to use the intended align as the
> direction of shift, so align to right shifts all but the right-most
> object to the right)
>
> and most egregious of all...
>
>   - a demo which doesn't allow one to create a new document?
>
> Also, it seems buggy.
>
>   - Try this. open up the fish demo document, remove everything (it's
> really limiting to only be able to interact with one layer at a
> time), then draw a rectangle, then choose Format | Interaction |
> Scale & Edit, then Format | Interaction | Scale --- the rectangle
> disappears.
>
>   - The UI doesn't keep track of all open palettes either --- even
> though it's open, the Walls palette doesn't have a checkbox next to
> it at the moment.
>
>   - changing the zoom level resets the window to the bottom center of
> a document
>
> William
>
> -- 
> William Adams
> senior graphic designer
> Fry Communications
>
>
>
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