Adobe Illustrator CS3 software allows you to create sophisticated artwork for virtually any medium. Industry-standard drawing tools, flexible color controls, and professional type controls help you capture your ideas and experiment freely, while timesaving features such as easier-to-access options let you work quickly and intuitively. Improved performance and tight integration with other Adobe applications also help you produce extraordinary graphics for print, web and interactive, and mobile and motion designs.

Q&A

What is Adobe Illustrator CS3?
Adobe Illustrator CS3 software is the essential vector drawing tool for originating designs that go everywhere. The Adobe Creative Suite 3 family of software offers a choice of design environments, and Illustrator CS3 is an integral part of each. Precision drawing and typographic controls, advanced live effects, powerful object blends, brushes, color exploration tools, and much more provide the vector tools you need, no matter what your medium.

What are the key new features and benefits of Illustrator CS3? Illustrator CS3 — the 13th full release of Illustrator — delivers exciting new and enhanced features in three key areas: creative power, ease of use, and integration.

CREATIVE POWER

Live Color
Explore, apply, and control color using Live Color, which lets you quickly create color harmonies and dynamically apply colors to artwork. Use the Color Guide panel to choose tints, shades, or harmonious color combinations, which you can save as Color groups in the Swatches panel. The Live Color dialog box lets you test alternative color schemes for a logo or create captivating color shifts for use in animations created with Adobe Flash CS3 Professional. When you need to reduce the number of colors in your artwork, Live Color intelligently remaps existing colors to new colors based on parameters you define, such as restricting the colors to a specific color library.

Point selection
Anchor points now automatically enlarge as you mouse over them so they are easily seen and selected. Even with no objects selected, the cursor shows a large square anywhere it detects a point. There are also preferences for setting the selection tolerance and the display characteristics of anchor points and handles.

Path editing
Now access path-editing tools and options from the Control panel, first introduced in Illustrator CS2. When points are selected, the Control panel shows the tools to delete and add points, cut and join paths, or convert anchors to smooth or corner. A one-click option for hiding and showing control handles is included in the Control panel.

Point alignment
You can now align and distribute points in the same way as you align and distribute objects, with the needed options displayed in the Control panel. Points can also be aligned to the artboard or to a crop area.

Improved operating performance
The underlying architecture of Illustrator has been improved to enable you to work faster. Scroll, pan, zoom, move, scale, and transform objects more quickly. Enjoy more responsiveness when you’re working on complex artwork. Multithreading advances translate into even better performance if you’re using multiple CPUs.

EASE OF USE

Control panel
The context-sensitive Control panel now puts even more tools at your fingertips. Access anchor-point controls, selection tools, clipping masks, envelope distortions, and more, all displayed as needed in the Control panel depending upon the objects selected.

Eraser tool
The new Eraser tool provides a fluid and intuitive way to modify objects or create entirely new, organic shapes. Quickly remove areas of artwork as easily as you erase pixels in Adobe Photoshop software by stroking with your mouse or stylus over any shape or set of shapes. New paths will automatically be created along the edges of your erased stroke with points laid down economically, but still preserving the smoothness of your erasure.

Isolation mode
Edit objects in a group without disturbing other parts of your artwork. Isolation mode let you easily select hard-to-find objects without having to restack, lock, or hide layers. All objects are grayed out except for the selected object to provide intuitive visual feedback.

INTEGRATION

Integration with Adobe Flash
Import native Illustrator files into Flash CS3 Professional, or copy and paste artwork from Illustrator to Flash with paths, anchor points, gradients, clipping masks, and symbols intact. Layers, groups, and object names are also preserved. In addition, Symbol options in Illustrator CS3 now include defining a symbol type as a movie clip or graphic symbol, assigning the symbol a registration location in Flash, and enabling guides for nine-slice scaling.

New Document Profiles
Create artwork quickly by selecting prebuilt profiles for all types of media, from print and web to video and mobile output. New Document Profiles specify setup parameters such artboard dimensions, video safe areas, styles, and color spaces

Crop Area tool
Interactively define rectangular crop areas for print or export. Choose from preset print, web, video, and mobile formats with options for safe areas, rulers, and more, and set crop marks intuitively. You can also define multiple crop areas and easily move between them as needed.

Adobe-standard user interface
The familiar Adobe interface is now more intuitive and consistent across components of the Creative Suite 3 family, making it even easier to move between Illustrator CS3 and Flash CS3 Professional, Photoshop CS3, and InDesign CS3 software.

Who should use Illustrator CS3?
Illustrator CS3 is the essential tool for graphic artists, video professionals, web and interactive designers, and professionals in other industries who use graphics to communicate ideas visually in print, on the web, in motion graphics, and via mobile devices.

How does Illustrator CS3 integrate with other Adobe products?
Illustrator CS3 is tightly integrated with the entire family of Adobe professional design, web, and video and motion applications. Use native Illustrator files in Photoshop CS3, InDesign CS3, Flash Professional CS3, and Adobe After Effects CS3 Professional software for efficient production and reliable output. The familiar Adobe interface is now more intuitive and consistent across components of the Creative Suite 3 family.

Are there differences between the version of Illustrator CS3 sold as a standalone product and Illustrator CS3 included in the Creative Suite 3 family editions?
There is no difference between the version of Illustrator CS3 included in the Creative Suite 3 family and Illustrator CS3 purchased separately. Both versions include the same features, functionality, and additional content, including Adobe Bridge CS3.