What’s New in Adobe Illustrator CC

Typekit fonts further integration

Illustrator now has a few new features around working with the desktop Typekit fonts that come with your Creative Cloud subscription. In Illustrator, if you go to the Font Family menu in the Control panel or Character panel, there is now a button in the upper-left corner that allows you to filter the font list in the menu, showing only desktop Typekit fonts that you’ve synched with Typekit.com.

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Filtering the font family list to show Typekit fonts

In the past, you’ve also been able to browse the Typekit fonts on typekit.com by clicking a button in the Creative Cloud desktop application. There is also now an “Add Fonts From Typekit” button in the font family menu that will launch your default browser and sign you in to the typekit.com website using your Adobe ID.

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Browse the fonts on Typekit.com

Check out this video to see the new Typekit integration in action.

Perspective drawing enhancement

This seemingly simply feature update will most likely impact how you work with the perspective tools (if you use them that is). If you have artwork attached to the perspective grid and lock the grid station point (View > Perspective Grid > Lock Station Point), you can drag a vanishing point (see the figure) with the Perspective Grid tool and the artwork on either grid will move with it.

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Edit the perspective grid and the content on the grid changes

Check out this video to see the enhancement to editing the perspective grid.

Other new/improved features

What’s New dialog box

This feature literally can’t be overlooked—it’s a dialog box that appears when you launch Illustrator CC after updating. It contains several intro videos on working with the new and improved features as well as a link to a more complete list of new/improved features. You will need an internet connection to watch the videos.

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The What’s New dialog box

SVG enhancements

This is one of my favorite areas when it comes to improvements. SVG is being used on the web more and more these days and I’m glad to see that not only are there a few new options when saving as SVG (File > Save As), but when you open an SVG in Illustrator, visual fidelity is maintained by aligning objects correctly with the pixel grid.

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SVG enhancements

Swatches panel

Bringing the Swatches panel a little more in line with the InDesign Swatches panel, the Illustrator Swatches panel now contains a Stroke and Fill buttons as well button to switch between list and thumbnail views.

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Swatches panel enhancements

Artboard resizing

A simple, but very welcome feature enhancement is the ability to resize an artboard from the center using the Artboard tool. Like working with shapes, if you press the Option (Mac OS) or Alt (Windows) key, then create (draw) or resize an artboard from one of the side handles of the artboard, it will resize from the center.

Pressing Opt+Shift (Mac OS) or Alt+Shift (Windows), while creating or resizing an artboard will constrain the width and height of the artbard while resizing from the centers.

Enhanced Windows support

Adobe Illustrator extends HiDPI support to Windows-based devices. You can now view Illustrator in enlarged mode, as per text size preferences on a high-resolution displays. This version of Illustrator CC now includes native support for Windows 8 -based input devices that support pressure feedback.

Import and Export Settings

Suppose that you work in Illustrator on a machine at work and a different machine at home. You can now export typical Illustrator settings, like general preferences, custom keyboard shortcuts (doesn’t work cross platform), color settings, workspaces, variable width profiles, user dictionaries and more.

By choosing Edit > My Settings > Export Settings, you can select a location, and then easily export an Illustrator settings package file.

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Export a settings package from Illustrator

You can then move that package file to another computer and then choose Edit > My Settings > Import Settings to choose and import settings from the package. Illustrator will require a restart in order to apply the settings.

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Import a settings package into Illustrator

Tip: If you add “.zip” on the end of the package file, you can unzip the contents and see what it exports. This isn’t necessary at all, just thought I’d mention it.

Opacity slider

This simple update changes the previous setting for changing opacity from a menu to a slider. You can find the new slider in the Transparency panel (Window > Transparency) or in the Opacity setting in the Control panel.

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Hurray for the opacity slider!

Well there you have it. A round up of the new and improved features in Illustrator CC for January 2014. Hopefully you can find some new features and improvements that can help with your daily workflow like I did. As always, if you have any feature requests or things that you feel need fixin’, you can go to Adobe.com and fill out the feature request/bug report form.