Real World Adobe® Illustrator® CS2 [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

Adobe Bridge

In today's world where hard drives and servers are filled with digital files serving different purposes, it becomes increasingly difficult to find the files that you need. In Illustrator's recent history, finding the right file to work on wasn't always a simple task because there hadn't been an easy way to visually browse through files. Enter Adobe Bridge. Adobe took the File Browser feature that appeared in previous versions of Photoshop and turned it into a full-blown application. Adobe Bridge allows you to visually preview all kinds of files including Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign files. In fact, Bridge can preview the individual pages

within multiple-page PDF fileseven movie and sound files (Figure 1.16 , next page).

You can either launch Adobe Bridge as you would any application on your hard drive, or you can access Adobe Bridge from the Go to Bridge button in Illustrator's Control palette (Figure 1.17 ). Alternatively, you can access Adobe Bridge by choosing File > Browse.

Previewing Files

The primary function of Adobe Bridge is to preview files so that you can find the right file quickly. (It isn't much fun copying a large file from a server and waiting several minutes for it to open only to find out that it isn't the file you were looking for.) The interface in Bridge is made up of different sections, called

panes , and each is resizable. At the bottom of the Bridge window is a slider that allows you to enlarge or reduce the size of the thumbnails that appear in the main Bridge pane. There are also buttons to preview the files in different ways. The Thumbnail view mode allows you to see rows of images (Figure 1.18 ). Pressing Command-T (Ctrl-T) hides the file names and shows just the images. The Filmstrip view mode lets you quickly scroll through files while seeing a large preview as you click each one (Figure 1.19 ). The Details view mode gives you thumbnail previews with additional information about the file (Figure 1.20 , next page).

While browsing files, you can open multiple Bridge windows to view different folders or files by choosing File > Open New Bridge Window. You can also apply ratings to files by clicking the dots that appear beneath each thumbnail. Rating your files can make it easier to organize them. For example, you might design 30 logos for a client and rate them so that you can easily find the ones you like best. Clicking the Unfiltered button at the top right of the Bridge window allows you to instruct Bridge to only display files with a specified rating (Figure 1.21 ).

The Versions and Alternates view is specifically for viewing files when you're using the Version Cue file manager that comes with Adobe Creative Suite.

Additionally, you can choose View > Slideshow to have an entire collection of images appear sequentially in full-screen mode. As each image appears on your screen, you can rate it. Press H on your keyboard during a slideshow to view the different options available.

Placing Files from Adobe Bridge

You can use Adobe Bridge for more than just opening Illustrator files. You can also use Bridge to place files into an open Illustrator document. You can do this simply by dragging files from Bridge directly into your Illustrator document. However, even on the largest of monitors, you may have trouble trying to make room for your Illustrator document, all of your palettes, and Bridge so that you can access the files. This is why Bridge has a button in its upper right corner that puts Bridge into Compact mode (Figure 1.22 ). In Compact mode, the Bridge window shrinks to be smaller and acts as a floating palette (it sits above your document window). Using Compact mode, you can easily drag files from Bridge right into your document.

If you still think that Bridge takes up too much space, you can click another button in the upper right corner of the Bridge window to activate Ultra-Compact mode where Bridge basically becomes a floating title bar (Figure 1.23 ). If you're placing a lot of content, you might find that toggling between Compact and Ultra-Compact modes is rather convenient.

Searching Files

If you go to a popular stock photo Web site, you can enter a keyword or a description of the kind of image you're looking for and instantly see a list of images that match your criteria. Have you ever wondered how this works? How does a search engine know what the contents of a photograph are? The answer is metadata.

Metadata is information about a file, and it can be just about anything. The creation date, author, creation application, keywords, and copyright information are all examples of metadata. Adobe applications use an XML-based standard called XMP (Extensible Metadata Platform) to store this metadata inside of files. The metadata resides in an XML header at the top of each file, and this data can be read by Adobe applications.

You can add metadata to a file in several ways. From within Illustrator, you can open a document and choose File > File Info. This opens the File Info dialog where you can enter a variety of metadata for your file (Figure 1.24 ). When you save the file, the metadata is embedded within the file. Using Adobe Bridge, you can even add metadata to a file without having to open the file itself. Simply highlight a file in Adobe Bridge and choose File > File Info. You can add metadata to multiple files simultaneously by highlighting several different files and then choosing File > File Info.

Metadata is what makes the search function in Bridge so powerful. If you add a keyword to your files about what client a file is for, you can easily search for all files that were created for a particular client. From Bridge, choose Edit > Find, and then specify your search criteria; at this point, Bridge creates a new window to display your search results. You can click the Save As Collection button to save the search criteria you used in your search (Figure 1.25 , next page). At any time, you can choose Collections from the Favorites pane to perform your search again.