Adobe Illustrator CS4 Books
Reviewed by: T.J. Nelson
Adobe Illustrator CS4 Classroom in a Book
lassroom in a Book grabs you by the ear and leads you around,
teaching the features of Ai by making you re-create the drawings on the
enclosed CD. Make sure you get the right book--the lessons in CS3
Classroom in a Book won't work in CS4. If you like being told what
to do, this would be a suitable way to learn Ai. The problem with this
book is, after you're done, you can't use it as a manual.
Using Adobe Illustrator CS4
ith 483 8½ × 11 pages, this book, available only from Adobe, is the
ultimate manual for Illustrator. Everything you might ever need to know
about Ai is here, direct from the horse's mouth--for example, how to input
Asian characters (strongly biased toward Japanese), how to create a color
gradient, and how to flatten for printing. The only drawbacks are a lack
of color illustrations and a dry writing style.
How to Do Everything: Adobe Illustrator CS4
ow to Do Everything is more like an actual computer manual than
Classroom in a Book and is more readable than Using Adobe Illustrator
CS4. It concisely covers the features in Ai and it's well written.
Unfortunately, it's full of mistakes, especially in the section on colors.
In some places, it tells you to use the wrong Options Panel; in other places
it neglects to tell you where a particular feature is located. The section
on color gradients is totally wrong--I had to go to the Internet to find
out the solution. But at only 310 pages, it's a quick way to get started with Ai.
