The following question comes in from Gary Voigt:
A while back you had a tip on how to set your default swatch and symbol palettes in CS2 (to include company logos and colors) and I found it extremely helpful!
Question: How can I do that in CS3??????
That's a great question, as it touches on one of the new features in Illustrator CS3 -- New Document Profiles.
In the past, Illustrator had a startup file (one for CMYK and one for RGB) which was stored in the Plugins folder. Any changes made to these startup files were included in every new file that was created in Illustrator. However, with Illustrator CS3, the concept of Startup files has been replaced with something new (and much better) -- New Document Profiles.
You'll find these profiles in the following locations on your hard drive:
MAC:Username/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Adobe Illustrator CS3/New Document Profiles
WINDOWS:C:\Documents and Settings\Username\Application Data\Adobe\Adobe Illustrator CS3 Settings\New Document Profiles
Simply open any of these files and modify them -- add or remove symbols, styles, swatches, etc. Then save the file and you're done.
Even better, DUPLICATE any of these profiles and create your own. There's no limit to how many different New Document Profiles you can have, and they will all show up on your Welcome screen, which is visible when you launch Illustrator. Feel free to delete the profiles you never use (although keeping a backup is always a good idea, just in case).
Overall, this is kinda like having multiple startup files, which is cool and extremely useful. But there's even more power, considering that New Document Profiles can contain lots of settings, including default Preview mode, ruler settings, and more. While much of this is covered in the first few pages of Real World Illustrator CS3, there are some interesting "hidden" settings, which I did not include in the book, with the intention of revealing them here on the blog... soon :)
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6 comments:
This is what I've been looking for for ages. Thanks
Will make my life a whole lot easier.
It's very like the templates in CS2. The great thing about this is that you create all your brushes and swatches - or open them from other files as Libraries - and arrange them on screen etc then save as a template.
Everything ready to go just as you want it.
I did a project with a group of students using AI to make drawings for animations with given colours and graphic styles and saved everything in a project folder as a template so the students just opened that fle and then created individual AI files from it, all with the same components.
Hi Mordy:
Another question. When creating a custom startup file, is there anyway to preset the stroke and fill variables, so that for instance, whenever I open a new file, stroke is already set to .5 pt, with no fill? I always have to go in and change these settings because that's what I use to start drawing every time.
Thanks, Brad
Brad, here is the way to set custom default style in your New document profile.
- Draw a square
- Set it to fill (none) stroke (black 0.5 pt)
- Select it
- Now hold down the option key as you drag it on top of the [Default] Graphic Style in the Graphic Style panel
- Save
Is there a way to change the default font in a New Document Profile? In CS2, it was possible by modifying the startup file and it was very usefull to change Myriad (the default typeface) to Myriad Pro (freely distributed with the Creative Suite), for instance. I tried in CS3 but without success.
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