Adobe has just posted a rather comprehensive FreeHand to Illustrator Migration Guide (11MB PDF) as well as a brief technical resource paper (392KB PDF) to their Design Center. Although it’s thoughtful of Adobe to put together such helpful guides for longtime FreeHand users, one can’t help but think the writing is on the wall for FreeHand and its users. Nevertheless, the guides appear to be helpful and worth a look if you happen to be considering the switch.
It’s interesting to speculate what Adobe is planning on doing with all the competing products they now have in their product lineup. I think many of us felt FreeHand would be the first or obvious casualty of the acquisition but the other redundant products are a bit more cloudy as to which should win out or if one should win out at all. Instead have the two, like products come together; bringing the best that each has to offer to the mix.
So the more apparent products that fall into this category are:
- Illustrator and FreeHand
- GoLive and Dreamweaver
- Photoshop/ImageReady and Fireworks
And a couple less discussed overlaps:
- GoLive Co-Author and Contribute
- Acrobat Pro and FlashPaper
I keep thinking about how Adobe handled the transition from PageMaker to InDesign, which to some extent is still happening. You can still purchase PageMaker. Although it’s been re-positioned as a business publishing tool. However, Adobe makes it somewhat attractive to upgrade to InDesign and even offers a PageMaker toolbar in InDesign CS2 to make the migration as painless as possible. So, I’d like to offer this example up to avid FreeHand users, but then I start to realize that the PageMaker/InDesign relationship is a bit of a different beast than the FreeHand/Illustrator relationship.
Let’s also keep in mind that Adobe tried to get rid of FreeHand once before with the acquisition of Aldus. So it’s really difficult to surmise what’s going on with all this (if anything at all). What do you think is going on here? I’d be interested in hearing other people’s thoughts on all this.
Update: I corrected the Altsys acquisition to Aldus. I was using all those tools at the time of the acquisition so it’s odd that I made such a slip. I most be getting old. Thanks Derek and Jack for jogging my memory.
Sphere: Related Content
I really hope that they’ll at least pull some of Freehand’s features over and not just kill it completely. I switched to Illustrator about a year and a half ago, but I’m still astonished at how much easier some tasks were in Freehand.
I’m taking the plunge as we speak. So far NO good. I’m amazed I ever used this program (used to be an Illustrator user, switched to Freehand). I may as well keep going but I echo what Nick said…Adobe…PLEASE incorporate some freehand features.
I have been using both Adobe and Macromedia products for over 6 years but I have to say [in my personal opinion], Photoshop beats anything Macromedia has in terms of picture editing software, BUUUUTTTTT, Macromedia programs are just easier to learn/use, have a smoother interface and are less expensive for myself and many of my aspiring web authors and graphics people who can’t afford the very expenive [legal] versions of Adobe software. I think Adobe will:
Keep and Empower these Programs:
Photoshop
Dreamweaver
Flash
Merge these Programs:
Image Ready / Fireworks [Under a Fireworks Heading]
Ilustrator / Freehand [Best of Both under Illustrator heading]
Acrobat / FlashPaper [Under the Acrobat Family]
Phase Out these Programs:
GoLive
PageMaker
There are a few other programs and technologies that could be merged and retooled, but I think the list I gave is what consumers are predominantly using from both sides of the creative world…
Now if we can just get some good intel / uninversal updates for Mac Users like me
I am a life long FreeHand user. I use CS2 but in all honesty it’s far faster and easier to create, edit, color and manage vector art in FreeHand. My productivity speed takes a huge hit with using CS2. Sure they have obvious features that are very nice but bottom line the core tool set in FreeHand is far more intuitive to use.
Adobe will never adapt anything from FreeHand into Illustrator, too much risk of pissing off the majority so why would they risk that? If they were smart and since they own both just keep developing both and make them integrated. They’ll still get my money either way.
All though this pdf is helpful, they really should author a migration tutorial DVD. Something that walks a FreeHand user through the basics since Illustrator thinking is drastically different then FreeHand thinking.
Features AI doesn’t have that I think are just moronic not to is:
I could go on but I won’t. I am sure some AI toadie will now post something whining about my comments.
Have used Freehand since version 1.0 and have enjoyed every update to Freehand MX. Also have had Illustrator since the early days, but stopped using it because of its overly complicated bad user interface. I use it only as a glorified file converter if needed.
There was always 2 main features I could always get people to drop illustrator…Fit to page when you print, and multiple page sizes within one file. Multiple page sizes is brillant and makes production and organization of multiformat projects a dream. As Adobe has grown so has their arrogance. It will be interesting to see if they are too proud to consider that maybe someone else has a better idea.
Illustrator needs to clean up its UI and print features, and get ride of stupid thinks like two different selection tools, simplify masking (paste inside), and include multiple page (including different size) into any new version of illustrator before I use it as a production tool in my business.
If these basic changes aren’t made, will continue to proudly use Freehand MX until it doesn’t work anymore under OS 10. And for the price of these upgrades and integration into suites, why should I step back in time to interface design 101
Adobe tried to kill Freehand on its first acquistion of Aldus, but thankfully the courts reverted the license back to its creator then Macromedia picked it up. I think this will be a vindictive payback against Freehand.
I agree with you Von. It will be a sad day when I have to give up Freehand.
I just wanted to make a correction to George’s post. It was Aldus, not Altsys, that was bought by Adobe. As I recall, Adobe was forced to sell Freehand, as it was considered to be the only competing product to Illustrator. It was also from Aldus that Adobe acquired Pagemaker. And as a final note of interest, GoLive was also an acquisition, formerly GoLive Cyberstudio, replacing their groundbreaking, but lagging, Pagemill.
Von Glitschka understates the clumsiness of Illustrator CS2 (moronic is where it starts, going down from there - did the creators of Illustrator try to USE it?). Creativity?? I think not. When I open the FH interface, all I have to have in mind is what I want to do, and enter a warm fuzzy creative fog. With Illustrator, the interface is always making me slow down and look for detours or compromises with an idea.
I have used FreeHand and Illustrator for years. Am amazed at the difficult and counterintuitive tools in Illustrator that do not get any better over many versions. Illustrator is still a lumbering memory hog (my computer has 4 processors, 4 GB RAM), crabby about fonts. FH makes all tasks easy, especially the transform functions. And Illustrator has no way of globally changing line weights, colors, etc. The FH to Flash pathways are perfect (although Flash is starting to suffer from ‘feature-itis.’). In the CS/SC2 suites, it appears that Adobe deliberately wrote file formats that force FH files to pass through Illustrator in order to get to InDesign. Happily, InDesign is an outstanding piece of software, albeit with a learning curve. Have done two books with InDesign and like it better with each project.
But back to Illustrator/FH comparisons. I would not like to do technical illustration with Illustrator, as it is just a mess for creating the sort of lines, fills and objects that flow so easily in the FH interface. Creative Toolbox, is there a rescue operation out there? FreeHand devotees want to know…
Wow. Kill FreeHand in favor of Illustrator, which doesn’t even support multiple pages within a file? I’d rather use CorelDraw than Illustrator, but they stopped developing for the Mac.
Freehand users are nothing if not dedicated. I myself am a lifetime AI user and have had the same sentiments as most of these people, but in the reverse order. Freehand has always seemed backward to me, almost as confusing as Corel Draw. Paste inside never made sense to me, where as create a mask has some basis in real life. You know, when doing a painting you use a masking sheet to contain your paint within a specified shape. As far as I can tell you can subselect down thru layers via the layers pallete or contxtual menu. I’m not saying that Freehand doesn’t have any merit, but I get the feeling that most of the comments here were made by old dogs refusing to learn new tricks. Just to satisfy my curiosity are most people here Mac Users or Windows Users. In my experience Mac users tend to prefer Adobe products and Windows users are attracted to Draw and Freehand. Just my 2 cents.
The writing has been on the wall for some time… I’m a former Altsys > Macromedia employee, worked on the Freehand team way back when.
I’ve been trying to teach myself Irritator and usually force myself to KEEP using it ESPECIALLY when I find myself saying “This would be SO much easier in FH”. For example, Text on a path, particularly circles, with text on top and bottom of the circle. My GOD it’s a pain in Irritator.
Also, Fireworks does a MUCH better job of turning Vector into Raster than any Adobe product. Have you tried editing paths imported into Photoshop? Positioning elements numerically, etc, etc…
Photoshop kicks Firework’s ass as a photo/image editor. PHOTO shop…
Ahhh…the battle rages on.
I don’t understand why Adobe bothered putting out that “Migration Guide”, it doesn’t tell you how to do a single thing that you’re used to as a FreeHand user. Illustrator will be great, when I decide to turn a flower into a 3D object….whooooooopeeeee! (It’s going to be a challenge for me to refrain from sounding like a 3rd Grader here, while pointing out Illustrator’s many flaws, but I’ll do my best.) When is the last time a professional graphic designer used the 3D tool? Really?
Just let me click through a stack of objects, without locking everything above it, or going to keyline mode.
Let me select a color from the color palette and swap it out for another color across the entire document. The “select same fill” feature AI has is lame.
Give me 1 knife and 1 pen.
…oh, and what’s up with the layers palette in AI? Does anyone find that valuable?
What’s up with AI’s Pathfinder tools? Does anyone ever not “Expand”?
The program is largely cumbersome and mostly unusable, from my perspective.
I agree it will be a sad day if AI doesn’t adopt some of FH’s better points. AI feels like a program created for the home user, not people who want to develop precise vector graphics and illustrations.
I teach graphic design. I feel I now have to teach Illustrator as as industry requirement, although I much prefer to both teach and use Freehand in my own work. The students learned Freehand much faster than Illustrator. We spend too much time learning the software instead of design. For all of the previously stated reasons, Freehand is a better software choice. We must teach what employers are demanding, however, my demonstrations will forever be peppered with “clone” and “paste inside.”
My thing is how come InD can have “select through layers” and “object-based paste inside” and AI cannot???
If AI would get color management better (ie replacing color etc.), scaling grouped art to fit into exact (desired) formats, copy and paste attributes added, handle it’s text better, fix the pathfinder and alignment toolboxes, add multiple pages, simplify it’s tools and not to mention not be such a memory HOG, I could say I really liked the program! That’s quite a list if you ask me…c’mon AI, get your sh#!t together!
But (sadly) since I’ve switched to AI, I’ve come to work faster simply cuz I don’t waste time anymore preparing FH files for final output, printers, etc. That’s HUGE if you have a bunch of work in FH and it’s literally no good until you export it all and then have to deal with the usual bugs from there – I WAS TIRED OF THAT! I find myself hating to even open FH nowadays and the ONLY time I do open it, is when I have to retrieve an old file and then again, export it and get to being productive again in AI.
I actually feel sorry for us FH users, it’s too bad that we have/had to jump through the hoops, but I can honestly say now that I USED to be a FH user – I would never go back. Don’t get me wrong, I’m proud to make that very comment. But why? It’s just fighting the losing battle for me. Why keep fighting for something that has no chance. Also, I can’t say I love AI, like I used to say I LOVED using FH - that’s the difference between them, but oh well I guess, there’s nothing I, or we, can do really.
Things I like (not to be confused with LOVE) about AI (not a very long list):
That’s really it for me in terms of “likes” - the “dislikes” far outweigh them though and that needs to change.
DIMEBAG, I’m a mac user. Certainly there will be some truth to what you say. We don’t always have the time nor the inclination to learn new tricks. Sometimes it’s good to get over that barrier and learn a better bit of software. Sometimes that process is a waste of time when we have invested many years of money and time mastering something that should have plenty of life left. Many of the posts said they used both. I started on Illustrator and swapped to FreeHand around version 3. FreeHand was vastly superior tool and for the most part it still is, despite a serious lack of development and many bugs.
I’ll counter your argument - this is always fun eh
… on the mask vs past inside. I can’t fault your comparison to masking in real life. However what you are missing is that it’s a lot easier to grab a whole bunch of things and throw them in a box than it is to try carrying them around under a mask. If you have a large number or large physical size object masked in Illustrator, the masked group is still the size it’s elements. Why is that a problem? Make a PDF, the PDF encompasses the size/limits of the masked objects even though they are not visible. Select the group and the masked objects are highlighted as well. In Freehand those masked objects are contained within your clipping path, which is much neater and consistent with other object orientated layout programs.. like InDesign!
You cannot extract an embedded image from Illustrator. Freehand also has an incredibly powerful find/replace palette and terrific management of colour swatches, multiple pages and symbols (like Flash). Illustrator cannot contain both RGB and CMYK. If I do a master file of a logo and all it’s colour variants I like to have them all in the one file - PMS, RGB, CMYK etc and save out individual EPSs. If I use Illustrator
I use Illustrator a bit now as well. Some things it does so much better. Printing, PDF, guides, bitmap generation and integration with Photoshop/InDesign. But I don’t draw anything in it, all this comes in from FreeHand.
Personally I’d like to see Adobe fix those dismal parts of FreeHand and bring it up-to-date without changing it’s basic philosophy. I cannot see a merger of the two as they approach the task from two completely different angles.
It’s all in what you like. I’ve found Freehand irritating - in fact, I’ve found every Macromedia tool I’ve ever touched to be pretty irritating. Director and Flash both drive me up the wall because they just don’t want to work the way I do. I’d scream if Adobe “improved” AI by making it work more like Freehand.
Just let me click through a stack of objects, without locking everything above it, or going to keyline mode.
preferences->general->object selection by path only - now you can click through a fill to a path beneath it.
Or select->next object below ( apple-alt-[, conveniently similar to object->arrange->send backwards’ apple-[ )
Let me select a color from the color palette and swap it out for another color across the entire document. The “select same fill” feature AI has is lame.
Double-click on a swatch, check “Global”. Draw some shapes, double-click on the swatch again and change it. I use this all the time.
…oh, and what’s up with the layers palette in AI? Does anyone find that valuable?
What’s up with AI’s Pathfinder tools? Does anyone ever not “Expand”?
Yes. I’ve been glad to be able to go back and tweak a part of a multi-path shape much, much later in the course of a piece.Hungy
The writing is not just on the wall its on the Adobe website.
Go here…
http://studio.adobe.com/search/main.jsp
…then just look at the selections you can make for products.
Does anyone see Freehand or Fireworks?
It looks like they are already DOA (or at least MIA)
Don’t overlook Adobe’s main product strategy - the suite model. They want software that is interoperable i.e. applications that share process and GUI metaphors.
Those two apps are too foreign to the Adobe user experience (hence the diametrically opposed opinions on the subject of which product set is better)
GoLive will survive because it is already Suite (sweet?) They will use Dreamweaver’s code to do the heavy-lifting of back-end database binding etc.
As for Fireworks and Freehand, I am sure we will see some of their niftiest attributes rolled into the rest of the product line but…
Better pay your last respects now.
I agree with pretty much everything Angus said. I’m a Mac user too, and over the last 14 years or so, I’ve been using both, but had probably six years straight of using only FH. In all fairness, I’ve only been using AI exclusively for about the last year and half, so I’m not nearly as familiar with it as I am FH. That said, I’ve always felt that Adobe has had superior UI to Macromedia, with the exception of Illustrator & FH. Illustrator has gotten a bit better (and FH worse IMO) but it always seemed to me like perhaps they were switched at birth or something. I was completely comfortable in FH but I’m far from it in AICS2.
My best sport game is to show FreeHand to Illustrator users… then they discover how it is to work fast and creative
ps:I will go on with FreeHand!
I still don’t understand why they were not forced to sell some of the stuff again.
Is there any real alternative (that Open-Source Inkscape stuff really does not count and Corel Draw has other goals than Illustration, I think) to Adobe products for Illustration?
For Photoshop, there is (although also no real option) lots of other software like Paint Shop Pro.
Would be great if FH became independent (again) from Adobe.
As somebody who has used both back and forth for the last 8 years, I must admit Macromedia’s UI is a bit daunting for beginners. Adobe’s products have always been far superior.
I do agree that Adobe should incorporate Freehand features, they’ll probably do a much better job than Macromedia ever did.
I also use the two of them, but I prefer FH by a long shot, for all the reasons exposed here and some more. There sure are some bugs and features that should be adressed (not strange, with almost two years from the last heavy update).
My only hope is that somehow Adobe would be forced (again) to release FH to another developer as before. Have just given a look at the guide, but feels like a bad joke. We can also forget about computers, and star working again with cutters, pasting repro paper, etc.
Bad times ahead.
As a long-time Freehand user, I may go back to construction paper and scissors. It’s possible to adapt some workflow to CS2, but I concur with everyone about loss of productivity, things being more complicated in Illustrator.
It may have been a “we’re number two, we try harder” thing, but when you click on Preferences in FreeHand you get a HUGE array of options. You can make it look like Illustrator (black points are selected, white points are not) or not, change the behavior of most of the tools, and make it work how you like. If you click on Preferences in any Adobe product, it’s a big “why bother?” One, two items you can change, and it’s not usually something I give a damn about nor something that will modify the behavior I’m trying to solve.
Adobe could win over FreeHand users (though I’d prefer them to keep FreeHand alive for the forseeable future) by offering MANY more options as to how tools and optoins behave, without sacrificing the loyalty of die-hard AI users (set the AI behaviors as the default).
I have been using Freehand since version 7 and as a graphic designer I think Freehand is far superior to Illustrator. The multiple pages in one document alone are a real time saver.
I’ve dabbled a bit with Illustrator and I’m amazed at how laborious it is to do a simple task like changing the colour of multiple objects. Freehand is better for page layout, but I must confess that Illustrator is probably better as a drawing tool and it’s implementation of Postcript is better and certainly creates cleaner and smaller PDF files.
If a happy moulding of the two could be found great, but with Adobe I doubt it. I really do hope that this product is not cancelled. It will really effect my time in being able to turn a job around. Although I will probably stick with Freehand as long as I can and slowly learn Illustrator.
Here’s the real story…http://blogs.adobe.com/scratchdisk/2006/05/freehandtoill.html
Thanks Adam for the link to the real story. It looks like Markdown garbled the URL though. Here’s the link for everyone: Freehand to Illustrator Migration Guide.
As you can tell from the comments posted above, there are a lot of people who favor Freehand and hope the development effort continues on it. I’d include myself in that crowd. Not because I use Freehand as much as I once did but I think competition breeds innovation and there are a lot of features I appreciate in Freehand.
I plan to do a followup post with a direct link to your post. I want Freehand users to feel assured that Adobe is looking out for them.
George,
Thanks for fixing the link…I actually think your reference to the PageMaker-to-InDesign migration is a good one. I’m not saying that’s what Adobe is going to do, but my point is that in the worst-case-secnarios I think Adobe has a good track record of giving it’s customers what they need in terms of document conversion, features, training, support, upgrades, etc.
I am very sad to see Freehand disappear, but it sort of has been dying a slow death for a long time. It is so much faster and to me so much better than Illustrator. I’m not sure what people do with these vector applications but for most uses, basic vector shapes, logos and so on, or vectors to bring into 3D environments etc..
I believe the shareware products will take over (and some open source possibly) which, since the inception of OSX have been flourishing in all categories (I’m not saying one has to have a Mac but I am a Macaddict indeed, and there’s some quality stuff out there in the bargain box), and I think we have not seen the end of it, be it in web design or page layout and drawing… for about what… 10 times less money (when not free), because in the end what matters is creativity, not just having THE tools we think we should have with big name/price tags on them. What matters is technologies (Postscript, Flash, PDF.. not the tools.. and we know who rules over those technologies indeed).
Back to my loose train of thought: I never understood why Illustrator had such a huge following, I guess it’s like MS Word in a way, people think they’ve got to have it, even when all they do is type one-page long letters LOL Once again it’s lla back down to technologies, all one needs is the ability to make .doc or .rtf. For God’s sake it’s like having a 4×4 to go down the block.. oh yes I know people do that too). To me Adobe IS Photoshop and Acrobat. Period. Well no, comma… it is also Flash of course. And Freehand was a much better partner to Flash than Elephantware Illustrator (which I actually despise making work so grueling).
My true wish: an application a little more in the idea of Canvas… at Adobe it could be InDesign with all the functionalities of Illustrator/Freehand, well mabye not all… I think this century needs streamlining, we do not need ALL THESE GADGETS.
For a long time I’ve been thinking of making the switch from FH to Illustrator, dabbling with it from time to time to see how it works and thinking the only reason I couldn’t do certain stuff was because I wasn’t familiar with the tools.
My discovery that AI doesn’t have multiple page functionality was a real surprise. Part of my job is creating different vector art that shares common objects and hence I’m a regular user of FH’s Styles, Symbols and Layers palettes. Editing object styles and layer orders is easy if I’ve got the 10 drawings in one file, but the admin of having to edit those 10 drawing across 10 files frightens me… Even if AI does have a “Load styles” function (does it?) this is exceptionally inefficient.
The more I use AI, the more I’m brought back to FH. Sure, its PDF, CS integration and print functionality suck, but the workarounds for these issues are not nearly as time consuming and as frustrating (I assume) as workarounds for some of AI’s ‘limitations’…
My wish; Freehand 12 - with more powerful PDF capability and, well that’s it, I think
It will be a cold, cold day in hell before I will ever give up Freehand 9. I’ve built my career and my business on it. It works for 80% of what I need in an application. Fireworks, GoLive and Photoshop make up the other 30%. With these tools, a graphic designer can consider himself well-equipped with the best of breed software. Illustrator is one sadistic piece of crap. Why bother? And who needs Quark or InDesign unless I’m laying out a book or a mag. For day in and day out, my bread is buttered with Freehand. Fireworks 3.0 is all I need for web graphics. Photoshop is a must. GoLive is so far ahead of DW in usability and site management that I wonder if it’s the same gluttons who claim to “like” Illustrator that actually prefer DW too.
The real leason in my 12 year career is that no piece of software is perfect. The best ones just get the hell out of my way.
While Photoshop is a killer tool for hi res image manipulation, I find the integration of both vector and bitmap objects in fireworks really intuitive and will be really dissapointed if fireworks is discontinued and photoshop doesn’t take on any of it’s great features.
ND.Creative,
You’ll be happy to hear that Fireworks appears to be very much alive. Adobe announced a private beta for the next version of Fireworks the other week. You can go here: http://www.adobe.com/go/fireworksbeta to signup if you’re interested.
I’ve always had a soft spot for Fireworks but haven’t ever made the switch to using it over Photoshop and ImageReady (to a lesser extent nowadays). I have rather high hopes for the next version of Fireworks since I’m doing much more Web/UI design these days. And just as you pointed out, Photoshop can be a bit overkill and ill-suited for this type of work.
I just dun really like freehand. My toolbox keep disappear. Anyone help me pleasee
i am completely astonished that illustrator has survived. as a lifelong freehand user i was forced to move to illustrator when i moved to a new country where illustrator predominated.
adobe indesign is a revelation and although it could still improve i was happy to leave the arrogance of quarkxpress behind, but the claim of an integrated creative suite is completely undermined by illustrator.
for example: whiy does the align tool work so differently (and unintuitively) in illustrator?
why are there different default shortcuts for the same functions and why are some functions completely absent in illustrator?
after starting mu own business i moved back to freehandbut live under constant fear that adobe will kill this beauty and leave me with the terrible beast.
Well, Lee I think Adobe may just let Freehand dies a long and sad death instead of killing it off officially. Anyone who remembers how LiveMotion went down knows what I’m talking about. My guess is you won’t find solace in Illustrator CS3 but you may find the next version of Fireworks to your liking. Of course, that is if you can use Fireworks which is mainly intended for online media.
I also prefer Freehand to Illustrator and have used both for many years.
You don’t have to use Illustrator if you are a Mac user.
You can buy a nifty Illustration program “Lineform” for less than $100 and get an intuitive powerful application that has “Inspectors” and feels like a little Freehand program. It has received rave reviews and the new version can parse pdfs–though I think they will need to refine this feature and probably will. It is situated to do well and stay updated.
Wow. I did a search for FH vs Illustrator and this is what I get. I’m just getting started with AI myself and was yanking my hair out trying to figure it out. I can see I’m not the only one. I’ve never used FH, but before AI, I just used Macromedia Flash to create my vector graphics. I am amazed at how much more fiddly AI is in comparison. The simplest action takes three or four different tools and selections. I can see now that I need FH, not AI.
Well, I’ve probably mentioned this a handful of times elsewhere, but if you can get away with it, I’d suggest trying out Fireworks CS3. It’s behaves more like FreeHand and less like Illustrator. For better or worse. If you’re doing print work, then Fireworks might not cut it though.
i just say and recomend it to all freehand users.
just look what other alternatives you have. go to the website and check out the features of xara and canvas..
COREL DRAW
http://www.corel.com
MICROSOFT EXPRESSION (DESIGN)
http://www.microsoft.com/expression/default.aspx
xara xetreme pro
http://www.xara.com/products/xtreme/default.asp?v=pro&t=
multipages, new brush tools,pantone colors….
canvas
http://www.acdamerica.com/products-x/default.html
wow, its really a great programm. check it out
i am just wondering that xara, corel, microsoft and canvas are not bringing out migration guides same as adobe. i think many users would feel better in xara or canvas than in illustrator. also i learned illustrator but the i still work with freehand because i am faster and all the workflow is smoother. working with tiled big pages? what should be this? many simple workflows you have to search and finde them behind hidden lists. you have not a library and a symbol palet istead of 2 you have 5 plats now? the clipping mask is a joke. for what should i allways ajust the color and fill from the f. mask? ok, i dont want to go on. and try to click fast thru groups. yummy
so i start searching and find xara and canvas. i am going into it and will in future change to them instead of illustrator.
Adobe illustrator’s UI sucks. Let’s be real. I don’t know what they are smoking over in that group, but someone should shake that bunch up a bit.
Xara is easy to learn. Even Canvas is easier to learn than illustrator. Illustrator has some great capabilities, but the learning curve is obscene. I will not use it.
Man, I never had a vacuum cleaner half as good as Illustrator!
XARA AND CANVAS ARE 10 TIMES BETTER THAN THE CLUMSY ILLUSTRATOR. I AM TRYING SINCE A HALF YEAR BUT I AM STILL WITH FREEHAND, BECAUSE ITS FASTER, FASTER TO USE, FASTER TO SELECT, FASTER TO COPY THING INSIDE. HEY, TIME IS MONEY AND I CHARGE QUIET A LOT MY COMPANY. WORKING WITH ILLUSTRATOR IS LIKE CHEATING MY BOSS.
Does Xara and Canvas support Caps Lock?