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First among these additions is a new perspective-grid tool that lets you simulate 3-D objects and backdrops. And the use of symbols isn’t limited to Web graphics: modifying a symbol causes all instances of the symbol to update–perfect for designs that involve repeating icons and page elements.Īside from SWF support, FreeHand 9’s new features won’t significantly change the way you work. A Web browser needs to download the symbol just once, regardless of how many times it appears. The new version gives you a way to reduce the size of a Flash file by storing repeating graphics and text objects as symbols. Two other options let you control how your SWF file is used: you can safeguard your Flash files so visitors can view them but not download them, and you can specify whether the Flash 4 Player can output a file at the full resolution of the visitor’s printer or only at screen resolution. One new option automatically resizes and renders a Flash animation so it fills a browser window exactly, regardless of the window’s size. The only drawback is the lack of a step-and-repeat function for cloning multiple pages.įreeHand also expands its support for SWF in version 9. And for those who prefer to animate pages using layers, a new tool lets you move pages, change their orientation, or even clone them (along with their contents) directly on the pasteboard.

(Strangely, however, it lacks predefined Web sizes, so you’ll have to create your own 800-by-600-pixel or banner-ad setting.) You can likewise define custom units of measurement–great if you tend to work in, say, 16-by-16-pixel blocks.

And FreeHand 9 lets you name and store custom page sizes. For starters, with FreeHand 9 you can create page sizes that are geared specifically for Flash output. Meanwhile, FreeHand 9 has already leapfrogged ahead. FreeHand 7 exported scalable graphics that were readable with a Shockwave player FreeHand 8 could convert blended paths to frames in a Flash animation.īy the time you read this, Illustrator 9 will have caught up with FreeHand–version 8, that is.

Fortunately for FreeHand loyalists, their software of choice backed a winner early on. Yet four years after that format’s introduction, most illustration programs are just now jumping on board. Just as Photoshop is a natural for creating Web imagery, drawing programs are ideally suited to vector-based SWF (Shockwave Format) content.