Appendix B. Moving from FreeHand to Illustrator

Believe it or not, this appendix was initiated several weeks prior to the bombshell announcement of Adobe's proposed acquisition of Macromedia. This announcement and possible merger don't change anything. Regardless of what happens with either Macromedia FreeHand or Adobe Illustrator moving forward, you will continue to benefit from your FreeHand expertise. As an already proficient FreeHand user who now desires to get up to speed in Illustrator, you are also about to find yourself ahead of the game when it comes to moving toward program versatility.

Do not look to this appendix for a global pronouncement as to which of the two applications is better. The answer to that question depends upon another: "Better at what?" It would be a wonderful thing to take the best treatment of each feature from each program (and if we did, we would have to include some features from CorelDRAW, Corel Designer, and Deneba Canvas in the mix) and combine them into one ideal vector-based commercial illustration program. Don't count on that happening anytime soon, though.

As a final assurance, before you dive in head first, know that this appendix is written to help you learn a new tool. Its tone is unbiased and your expertise is assumed, and more importantly, respected. This section assumes an intermediate-level proficiency with FreeHand.