6 replies to this topic

[frax]

What are everyone's favorite illustrator plugins? I am just getting into the adobe world for real (after occasional use for a long time)...

I am currently evaluating Path Styler Pro (for creating subtle bevel effects for thematic maps) and MAPublisher (not that impressed).

[Martin Gamache]

Check out these:Graffix plug ins
and also the Adobe Studio Exchange has alot of scripts and plug-ins for free that you may find useful.

I've run a demo of extreme path and Cad Tools neither of which I found that useful.

As for MP, I find the export to AI functions of ARCGIS to be good enough except for the rare case where I need to get vectors I've edited in Illustrator back into the GIS environment.

mg

[Hans van der Maarel]

I'm a big MAPublisher user Never exstensively used anything else.

[frax]

A recurring task for me, which I find very tedious -- when bringing in additional GIS data (exported as .ai from illustrator): to align everything to existing layers... time consuming, annoying and boring (doesn't take that long time though, but not very fun).

Are there are special tricks that I have missed, or is there a plugin that could fix this?

[Martin Gamache]

ARC exports an invisible clipping path that matches your page border on every layer. I turn smart guides on and use that. It never takes more than a few seconds and I have never found it tedious or time consumming. Take some time to deconstruct an ARC exported AI file, look at it in preview mode with all layers and notice that every layers contains a clipping path. As long as your extent does not change in ARC, it should be easy and painless to register artwork. Set some bookmarks in your ARC document so you can return to the exact same scale and extent before exporting. In some ways ARCMAP use to be buggy in this regard the extent and scale would shift around a bit. I think this has been fixed. Manifold does not have this problem.

mg

[frax]

never thought of that -- deleting that clipping path is actually the first thing I do when I import things from Arc...

[Martin Gamache]

Me too, but I always leave one on a layer alone and rename that layer registration and lock it. I also convert a copy to guides. That way I find that my next imports line up by themselves 90% of the time.