Chapter 3: Import Artwork

Overview

Illustrator files often include objects from other sources. If you simply want to combine objects from more than one Illustrator file, you can copy and paste them between documents. But if you want to include artwork from Photoshop, PowerPoint, a scanned photo, or other artwork with another file format, you ll use Illustrator s Place features to insert that artwork.

Placed artwork can be from another vector graphics program (such as Freehand or CorelDRAW), or it can be a bitmap image. Imported pixel-based files present some special challenges because they come from the world of bitmaps and aren t easily edited with Illustrator s vector art tools. This chapter will explain how to effectively combine artwork from other sources ” especially bitmaps ”with an Illustrator project.

Note  

Chapter 19 will take a quick look at Illustrator's limited bitmap editing tools. For most bitmap editing, the folks at Adobe would prefer that you turn to Illustrator's cousin, Photoshop.