- In this movie, I'll show you how to reorganize
Illustrator's network of panels,
so that you can get to the program's most important options
anytime you like.
And I'll also show you how to save the result
as what's known as a workspace.
Now as you're probably aware, Illustrator is
one of the most complicated programs out there.
And it contains thousands of options,
some of which are absolutely essential,
that are found in panels.
And these panels are indicated by these icons
in this vertical strip over here on the right hand
side of the screen.
And it's a little deceiving, I think,
the way we currently have things set up
because these icons end up looking very similar to the tools
over here on the left hand side of the screen.
But they actually work nothing like them.
So for example, if I click on this first icon
in the top right corner of the screen,
I bring up a panel of Color Options
that will allow me to select a color
just by click on this colorful rail.
Problem is, even though these panels
are really, really necessary,
the way they're set up now you can only see
one panel at a time.
So if I click on this icon,
which represents the Layers panel,
then I'll bring up the Layers panel
and I'll hide the Color panel.
And by the way, your panel may be much shorter,
and if it is, you can always make it taller
by dragging on the top or bottom edge of the panel
as you see me doing here.
So for my part, what I like to do
is see the contents of more of these panels
on the right hand side of the screen,
and I also like to bring up a few more panels.
Because if you go up to the Window menu,
you'll see a long list of panels,
many of which are essential to getting work done
inside this program.
And so what I'm asking you to do, is trust me on this one,
and set up your panels the same way I've done
based on essentially half a lifetime of experience
working inside Illustrator.
And in the end, we're going to come up
with this organization here.
So we'll have a column of expanded panels
on the right hand side of the screen,
as well as a column of icons.
Alright so here's how it works.
I want you to start by going up to this Workspace menu
in the top right corner of the screen,
and choosing Essentials Classic,
which is a good place to start.
And then just to make sure that you and I
start from the same place, click that option again
and choose Reset Essentials Classic
and that will restore the factory defaults
including this super huge Properties panel.
Now I ultimately respect the Properties panel,
and when the black arrow tool is active,
as it is right now,
the panel offers access to options
that are otherwise strewn all over the program.
But when any other tool is active,
then this panel is no more helpful
than it's much smaller cousin, the unobtrusive Control panel
up here at the top of the screen.
And so I'm going to hide the Properties panel
by right clicking on its tab and choosing close.
Not close tab group this time around, just close.
And don't worry,
you can always bring back the Properties panel later
by going to the Window menu
and choosing the Properties command.
Now that leaves us with the Libraries panel.
I want you to grab that Libraries tab
and drag it and drop it onto the bottom
of this little icon group here
below these two pages that represent the Artboards panel
that we saw on a previous chapter.
So make sure you see the icons outlined in blue,
at which point drop the panel
and you'll see it represented
by a little creative cloud logo.
Now you can bring up more panels,
by going up to the Window menu
and choosing a command, starting with Actions.
And so I'll go ahead and choose the Actions command
so that you can see that we have a free-floating panel
and we actually have two panels living next door
to each other, Actions and Links.
If you want to move these panels together,
then just drag this horizontal bar above 'em.
And so I'm just going to drag 'em off to the side here.
That's not where I'm going to leave 'em,
we'll come back to those later.
Next I want you to expand this column of panels
by clicking on this double arrow icon,
near the top right corner of the screen.
And that goes ahead and expands all of those panels
so that we can see their contents.
Now I want you to notice how big these tabs are,
such as Color and Swatches and so forth.
Adobe make them big for tablet users,
specifically folks using Microsoft Surface Pros.
But if you're working on a desktop computer as I am,
or even a laptop,
then you can save yourself a lot of space
by making the tabs smaller.
And you do that on a PC by going to the Edit menu,
on a Mac, you go to the Illustrator CC menu,
then you want to drop down to the Preferences command,
which is not nearly so low on the menu on the Mac,
and finally go ahead and choose User Interface
from the sub-menu.
And notice this check box right here.
As soon as you turn it off,
you will see your tabs shrink on screen.
And so notice when I turn that checkbox off,
our tabs get much smaller.
Now if you don't like that,
go ahead and turn the checkbox back on.
But I'm going to leave it off, at which point I'll click OK.
Alright now I'm going to expand the Color panel
by clicking on its tab right there,
and notice that makes the panel much larger,
we'll take care of that in a moment.
And now I want to move some panels around.
Starting with Swatches.
So I'll grab that Swatches tab,
and I'll drag it and drop it into this group
that includes Color and Color Guide.
And then I'll click on the Color tab to switch back to it.
Now I want to move the Brushes and Symbols panel
in order to create a new column of icons.
And you can move both panels at the same time
by dragging in this empty area
to the right of the world symbols.
So I'll go ahead and drag that area.
And then I'll drop it when I see this thick,
vertical, blue line.
At which point I end up with another column of panels.
Now I want these panels to appear as icons,
so I'll click on this double arrow icon
to collapse the panels like so.
You can always make this column wider,
by the way if you want to,
by dragging this left hand edge,
at which point you can see the names of the panels.
I don't really have room for that however,
so I'm going to go ahead and drag that left edge
back where it was.
Alright now I'm going to take the Graphic Styles tab
and I'm going to drag and drop it
onto the bottom of this little icon group
so that all three of these icons are grouped together.
Alright now I'll click on the Layers tab
in order to expand that panel,
and I'll switch to the next tab over, Asset Export.
The thing about this panel,
even though it's very useful as we'll see in chapter 15,
is that it takes up a ton of room,
which is why I think it's better off
expressed as a free-floating panel.
So I'll go ahead and grab that tab
and I'll drag it and drop it any old place
inside the document window,
and then I'll just go ahead and close that panel for now.
Bearing in mind, of course, that we can always bring it back
by returning to the Window menu,
and in this case choosing Asset Export.
Alright I'm going to go ahead and press the Escape key
in order to hide that menu.
And now I'll grab this Appearance tab,
and I'll drag it and drop it into this group
that includes the Libraries panel.
And then I'll go ahead and drag the tab to the left,
like so, so that it's right next to the Layers tab.
So we now have Layers, Appearance, Artboards and Libraries.
All of which are exceedingly useful panels
inside Illustrator.
Alright I'll go ahead and switch back to the Layers tab.
And now we need to bring up some more panels.
And I'm going to start by going to the Window menu
and choosing the Align command,
which brings up these three panels right here.
And then I'll drag the horizontal bar
and drop it in order to create a new icon group.
And now I'll return to the menu,
and then I'll go all the way down here to the bottom,
and you may have to scroll through the menu
as I'm doing as well.
And then choose Type followed by Character
to bring out the Character, Paragraph and Open Type panels.
And I'll go ahead and drag that horizontal bar
and drop it into this spot right here.
Now I'll return to the Window menu,
choose Type once again, followed by Character Styles.
And I'll go ahead and grab both of these panels
and drop them into place.
And then I'll return to the Window menu,
and this time I'm going to choose the Info command.
Which brings up two totally unrelated panels
inside Illustrator, Navigator and Info.
I'm going to grab the Info tab by itself,
and start a new icon group right here.
And then I'll return to the Window menu
for believe it or not, the last time,
and I'll go ahead and I'll choose Document Info
in order to bring up these two panels,
Document Info and Attributes.
And I'll drag this horizontal bar
and drop them into that same icon group
that includes the Info panel.
Now I'll grab the Navigator tab,
and I'll just go ahead and drop it into its own icon group
because it's a pretty special panel.
It's not really like any of the others.
And then I'll go ahead and grab the horizontal bar
associated with the Actions and Links panel
and I'll drag them and drop them
in order to create a new group as well.
Alright so that takes care of the organizational steps
where the panels are concerned.
In the next movie,
I'll show you how to save off your panels
as a custom workspace.