Section 37. Exploring the Appearance Palette

#37. Exploring the Appearance Palette

The Appearance palette may seem like a sophisticated Info palette at first glance, simply reporting the appearance attributes of the selected object. But looking deeper, you'll see that this palette allows you to directly interact with these characteristics, build upon them, and then save them as a graphic style to apply to other objects

Saving Graphic Styles

Once you've decided on a set of attributes you would like to apply to other objects, you can save it as a reusable graphic style (see #74). Simply drag the object with the applied attributes into the Graphic Styles palette (Window > Graphic Styles). To apply the graphic style to new objects, select the object and click your graphic style.

This means that just about any object can be made up of multiple fills, strokes, and live effects. To top it off, any of these fills, strokes, or effects (see #36) can include discrete transparency settings, or you can apply a global setting to the entire object or layer. The Appearance palette is designed to manage it all (Figure 37a).

Figure 37a. The Appearance palette is your command center for controlling every minute detail of an object's overall appearance. Objects can have multiple fills, strokes, blending modes, and effects applied to them.

To add multiple attributes to an object, such as multiple strokes, select the attribute in the Appearance palette and click the Duplicate Selected Item button . With the duplicated attribute selected, you can apply a different attribute characteristic, for example, stroke weight, color, opacity, blending mode, or live effect. You can reorder attributes by dragging them within the palette just like you drag layers in the Layers palette. Keep in mind that you can have multiple effects on an object or certain items, such as individual fills or strokes (Figure 37b). Ordering effects and other items can dramatically change the overall appearance of an object. To delete a selected attribute, click the Delete Selected Item button . When you select an object that contains other objects, such as a layer, group, or text object, a Contents row appears in the palette. Double-click the Contents row to drill into the object's contents. As you start working with the Appearance palette, you'll soon realize just how powerful and flexible it truly is.

Figure 37b. Applying multiple fills, strokes, effects, and so on, you can create some truly compelling results. All of the objects shown are basic circles with various style attributes applied to them.