Type enhancements


    Illustrator CS introduces a redesigned text engine and forward-looking features that make it easier than ever to set great-looking type.

    Paragraph and character styles

    Paragraph and character styles help you maintain high production standards by ensuring that all of the text in a design uses consistent formatting, whether for entire paragraphs or shorter segments, such as run-in heads or words that require particular emphasis. Styles also save you time because they enable you to apply a rich set of formatting attributes with a single click of a mouse.

    For more information on character and paragraph styles, see Using character and paragraph styles.

    OpenType font support

    The OpenType font standard was developed jointly by Adobe and Microsoft, and brings the advantages of both the TrueType and PostScript font formats into a new format that takes advantage of Unicode character encoding.

    OpenType fonts use a single font file for both Macintosh and Windows computers, so you can move files from one platform to another without worrying about font substitution and other problems that cause text to reflow. A single OpenType font file can also include many more glyphs (a glyph is a visual representation of a character) than other font formats, including glyphs previously only available in expert sets and characters for non-western languages such as Greek and Cyrillic.

    In addition to these general benefits, Illustrator CS includes special OpenType commands for automatic context-sensitive substitution of alternate glyphs. When you select any of these options, Illustrator automatically replaces the default glyph for a particular character or combination of characters with any contextually appropriate alternative. For example, if you have the Fractions option selected and type 3/16 in an OpenType font that supports arbitrary fractions, the numbers will be automatically reformatted as a fraction; if you select the Swash option and the selected OpenType font includes alternate Swash glyphs, they will be used.

    For more information on OpenType font support, see Applying OpenType features to characters.

    Easy access to alternate glyphs

    The new Glyphs palette in Illustrator CS offers a fast, accessible way to see all of the glyphs in a font, such as Ornaments, Terminal Forms, Discretionary Ligatures, and more. Simply double-clicking inserts the selected glyph. Previously, you could access these special characters only by memorizing keyboard shortcuts or manually formatting individual characters using a separate "expert" version of a font that included the character you wanted.

    For more information on using the Glyphs palette, see Inserting glyphs.

    Columns, rows, and other area type enhancements

    Quickly produce multi-column designs by defining columns and rows in any text area. Specify the number of columns and rows, the width and height of those rows and columns, whether or not they're a fixed size, and the size of the gutter. You can also determine the size of the inset between the text and the object containing it, how the baseline is set, and whether text flows between linked objects from right to left or left to right.

    For more information on setting up rows and columns, see Working with blocks of type.

    Optical kerning and optical margin alignment

    With many fonts, the default spacing between characters is visually uneven or crowded, even when the kerning pairs built into the font are used. Designers have long used manual kerning to adjust the space between awkward-looking pairs of letters, but the process is time-consuming. To help balance your desire for quality against your drive to meet schedules, Illustrator CS introduces two features that automate kerning:

    • Optical kerning automatically kerns text to produce optimal spacing. When applied to a word, line, or paragraph, Illustrator analyzes the visual characteristics of text and automatically determines the ideal spacing for the characters--even when that text mixes different fonts and font sizes. Kerning is cumulative, so you can always adjust optically kerned text to suit your eye. For more information on using optical kerning, see Adjusting kerning and tracking.
    • Optical margin alignment automatically adjusts the position of punctuation and text characters at either end of a line to make the edges of a text block look more visually even. You use optical alignment most often to hang punctuation, such as quotation marks and hyphens, but other characters are subtly shifted as well in order to produce typographically good-looking results. For more information on using optical margin alignment, see Specifying hanging punctuation.

    Every-line Composer for optimized paragraph composition

    The new Every-line Composer in Illustrator CS gives you the ability to produce exquisitely typeset text without fine-tuning line breaks by hand. The main goal in setting longer runs of text--in brochures, packaging, and other materials you create with Illustrator--is to produce the most elegant line breaks you can with minimal hyphenation, consistent word and letter spacing, and no distracting "rivers" of white space flowing from line to line. The Every-line Composer, a unique Adobe composition engine used in Adobe InDesign and Adobe Photoshop, examines all of the text in an area to determine the best combination of line breaks across the entire run. Illustrator CS also includes the Single-line Composer, which applies hyphenation and justification settings to one line of text at a time, just as Illustrator did in the past.

    For more information on the Every-line Composer and the Single-line Composer, see Working with composition.

    Custom tab leaders

    With Illustrator CS, you can customize the dot type and pattern for tab leaders, or you can design your own graphics to use as tab leaders. In addition, Illustrator now lets you set unlimited numbers of tabs.

    For more information on setting up tab leaders, see Working with tabs.

    WYSIWYG font menu

    The Font menu in Adobe Illustrator CS displays each font face you have installed, so you can choose the fonts you want to use visually. Experimenting with different faces is now faster and more direct, and you can see at a glance what format a font uses (for example, the green and black O indicates an OpenType font). If you prefer, you can also disable this option.

    For more information on previewing fonts, see Previewing fonts.

    Expanded support for Japanese typography

    Adobe Illustrator is the standard for design in most countries, and support for file sharing between different language versions has long made it possible to share designs globally. Illustrator CS expands this support with more sophisticated controls for formatting Japanese text. This includes customizable mojikumi rule sets for determining optimal character spacing, as well as editable kinsoku shori rule sets for handling Japanese punctuation, characters that cannot begin or end lines, and characters that can't be separated. Illustrator also includes other enhancements, such as automated tate-chu-yoko controls, a composite font editor, an IME editor for entering Japanese text, and a preference for hiding or showing Japanese text options in Roman versions of Illustrator.

    For more information on Japanese type features, see Working with Chinese, Japanese, and Korean type.

    New options for type on paths

    Illustrator CS expands your options for designing text on a path. The new Type on a Path submenu on the Type menu provides five preset alignment options, and the Type on a Path Options dialog box includes additional options for controlling the position of the text relative to the path. Now you can create a wider range of looks for projects that use path text with a minimum of effort.

    For more information on setting options for type on paths, see Adjusting the position of type on a path.

    On-screen highlighting of missing fonts

    Illustrator CS automatically highlights fonts that are used in a document but are not available on a computer system, so you can identify and fix problems easily. Then use the Find Font command (available in previous versions of Illustrator) to replace the missing fonts with installed ones or identify the missing fonts so you can install them.

    For more information on missing fonts, see Handling missing fonts.

    Enhanced hyphenation and justification controls

    Illustrator CS provides significantly enhanced hyphenation and justification controls. Control how long a word must be before Illustrator hyphenates it, whether Illustrator hyphenates capitalized words, and whether it favors better word and character spacing or fewer hyphens. New Justification controls allow you to set minimum, maximum, and desired settings for word spacing, letter spacing, glyph scaling, and more.

    For more information on setting up hyphenation and justification, see Controlling hyphenation and justification.

    Expanded language support

    Spell-check and hyphenate the text in your Illustrator documents in 29 languages, from U.S. and U.K. English, French, and German to Icelandic, Polish, Serbian, and Turkish.

    For more information on language support, see Assigning a language.

    Improved text linking and deletion

    Text linking is now more flexible: any text area, including path text, can be linked to any other text area, so it's possible to flow text from one area, onto a path, and then into a second area. Plus, you can now delete a linked text block without also deleting any text it contains--the text now flows back into the previous box. Illustrator also now reduces clutter in your documents by automatically deleting empty text blocks that are created by clicking a type tool and not entering text.

    For more information on text linking and deletion, see Threading text between objects and Unthreading text from objects.

    Warning about text reflow

    Open documents created in older versions of Illustrator with confidence: you can choose to have the text in legacy documents remain just as it was designed until you click an insertion point to edit it, or you can choose to update all type objects when you open the file with Illustrator CS.

    For more information on your options for reflowing text, see Updating text created in previous versions of Illustrator.