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*** DesignGeek ***
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Tips and techniques for the digital designer
In this issue:
-- Fun with Illustrator Pattern Fills, Part 1
-- Degunkifying Word Files
-- YouTubes for DesignGeeks
Issue 65, 9/17/07
Written by Anne-Marie "HerGeekness" Concepcion
... for her clients, colleagues, random contacts and interested subscribers
(c) 2007 Seneca Design & Training, Inc.
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Fun with Illustrator Pattern Fills, Part 1
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A new Illustrator user recently asked me if Illustrator had any basic pattern fills, something less gaudy than the default ones in the Swatches panel. Truthfully, I haven't investigated the state of pattern swatches in Illustrator since about version 3. I remember how they used to choke my old Apple LaserWriter, though!
So I opened Illustrator CS3 to remind myself of the exact path to the pattern swatches and see if there were any simple ones he could use. You know, just do a quick check so I could e-mail him a how-to.
One hour later I came up for air. Man, they are fun to play with!
Creating and modifying pattern fills in CS3 is a lot easier than I remembered, and also a lot more interesting, especially when you combine them with Illy's live Effects like Warp and Twist.
Note I'm not talking about Pattern Brushes; the kind you apply to a path and which are even more fascinating to work with. I'll leave that for another day. Let's just stick with basic pattern fills -- there are plenty of techniques here for you to experiment with to liven up your Illustrator artwork.
In fact, I'm splitting this into a two-parter. In this issue I'll give you the basics, in the next issue I'll discuss how to include the pattern fills in your transformations and distortions.
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Pattern Swatch Libraries
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First, let's answer my friend's question: Are there more built-in pattern swatches than appear by default?
Si senor. In CS3, go to Window > Swatch Libraries > Patterns. You'll see three additional fly-out categories there: Basic Graphics, Decorative, and Nature. All told they hold eleven different pattern libraries, and each library has ten to twenty different swatches. Choose any library and it opens up in its own panel, with its pattern swatches available for use.
Now I don't know if it's just my machine, but I couldn't find the pattern libraries in CS2 using this method. The "Patterns" category didn't appear in the Window > Swatch Libraries fly-out (nor in any of the other library types). But I found I could open the pattern libraries by scrolling to the bottom of the long Swatch Libraries list and choosing Other Library. That jumps to the Presets folder in the Illustrator CS2 application, and here I found the Patterns folder with the same sub-folders (Basic Graphics, etc.) and libraries. Opening any of these files opens that library's Swatches panel in Illustrator CS2.
To use one of the pattern swatches, just select an object, make sure the Color panel's Fill icon is in front, and click the swatch. The object fills with the pattern, and the swatch is added to your main Swatches panel. You could also drag pattern swatches directly to your Swatches panel without applying them, just make sure nothing is selected before you do so.
If you want to change the pattern's colors or adjust its elements, hang on, that's coming up.
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Make Your Own Patterns
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Oh, so complicated! Here's how:
1. Draw something.
2. Drag it to the Swatches panel.
3. The end.
Amazing, no? Any selection you drag and drop into your Swatches panel becomes a pattern automatically. To test your new swatch, select an object -- anything that can take a fill, even type -- and choose your pattern from the Control panel's Fill menu. (Or, make sure the Fill icon is in front in the Colors panel, and click your pattern swatch in the Swatches panel).
Your original artwork fills the shape in a repeating, tiled pattern. Each "block" of the pattern fill is the same size as your original artwork, so if you want a small pattern that repeats a lot by default, be sure to scale it down before dragging it into Swatches. (You can also scale a pattern independent of the object it fills; that's in Part 2.)
You can make a single piece of artwork into a pattern, or shift-click multiple objects -- they don't have to be touching -- and turn it into a pattern by simply dropping the selection into Swatches. Even a block of live text can be a pattern! As long as you don't nest patterns (Illustrator won't let you drag a pattern-filled object into the Swatches panel), it'll work. There are likely other limitations, but I haven't found many.
I even imported a raster file, the Photoshop Rubber Duck (from the Photoshop Samples folder), scaled it down to about a half-inch square, and dragged that into Swatches. Voila, I could fill shapes with tiny duckies. The image has to be embedded, not linked, for this to work. I don't recommend this though unless you have lots of RAM and a fast machine, as each instance of the repeating raster is added to your file size and to the Links panel as multiple embedded images.
Now, if you want to create a pattern that's seamless -- for example, where the end of a curved line in one pattern tile merges with the other end of the same line in an adjacent tile, so it looks like one continuous line ... then there's more work involved. Not that much more work, though. Illustrator's online help pages have step-by-step instructions for creating intricate seamless pattern tiles, check it out if you're so inclined.
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Turn Symbols into Patterns
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Illustrator comes with an incredible number of imaginative pieces of artwork disguised as Symbols. There are only a few in the default Symbols panel, but try browsing through the hundreds of others that live in all the additional Symbol libraries (Window > Symbol Libraries).
To turn a symbol into a pattern, drag the symbol out of the Symbols panel or one of the Symbol libraries you've opened, and drop it onto the artboard. Then drag it from the artboard to the Swatches panel. It's no longer linked to the original symbol, now it's a pattern tile.
Many of the symbol libraries contain variations of the same basic artwork, like tree leaves or patches of grass. You can pull from these libraries for interesting pattern effects. For example, open the Symbol library called Hair and Fur. Each symbol is a slightly-different tuft of hair or bit of fur. (No animals were harmed, I've been assured.) Drag out three or four of these, arrange them somewhat randomly, near each other on the artboard, then shift-click to select them all and drop the selection into your Swatches panel.
Test it out by filling a shape with your new swatch. Now that's what I call one hairy pattern, by gum.
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Change a Pattern's Colors
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Once a you've filled a shape with a pattern, you can't change the color of any of the pattern's elements. If you try choosing a Fill color you'll see the color just fills the shape, replacing the pattern. (I wish pattern fills had a "Colorize" attribute like pattern brushes do, but they don't.)
Instead, you'll need to edit the pattern source itself. Just drag the pattern swatch from the Swatches panel onto your artboard. Zoom in so you can see what you're doing, and use the usual tools to select elements of the pattern and change fill and stroke attributes. You may need to choose Object > Expand and/or use the Direct Selection tool to select individual elements.
Of course, while you're editing a pattern, you're not limited to changing its colors. You can edit anything you want -- add or remove elements, scale things, change the stacking order, and so on.
When you're done, select all the elements and drag the modified pattern swatch back into the Swatches panel. It gets added as another pattern swatch. If you want to replace the old pattern with the one you just modified (updating all the artwork you had filled with the pattern), hold down the Option/Alt key as you drop it directly on top of the original pattern swatch in the panel.
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Coming Up in Part 2
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In the next issue of DesignGeek, I'll talk about tips for transforming pattern fills (scaling, rotating, etc.), and how to apply cool distortions and effects to them. In the meantime if you have any favorite pattern tips, e-mail them to me so I can include them!
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Degunkifying Word Files
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I think messy Word files have some sort of cosmic connection with ragweed. Over the past few weeks I've received an inordinate number of e-mails from people (half of whom I don't know and just found my site on Google) pleading for help with Word documents that misbehave when imported into InDesign or QuarkXPress.
And over the same period I've had to keep a bottle of Claritin and Windex on my desk because my hay fever is acting up and it's hard to read my laptop monitor with sneeze droplets all over it.
Or ... maybe I'm just developing an allergy to bad Word files? There's a scary thought.
Here are my Handy-Dandy Tips for Degunkifying Word Files that I've been sending to these people. They're only needed when you're trying to retain the styling information in the Word file as you import it. (If you're stripping the formatting, then there's no gunk to de-anything.)
I'm confident that in most cases, these methods will do the trick, not just because I use them myself, but because often, the people who e-mailed me reply a few days later in an all-caps style with lots of exclamation quotes, such as (and I quote): "THANK YOU!!! Tip #2 did the trick!!!! You're a lifesaver!!!!"
Aww shucks.
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Tip #1: Maggie The File
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Did you know that Word stores all sorts of hidden information in its paragraph returns and section breaks? And in a Word document with no section breaks, the final paragraph return is also the de facto section break? These markers are particularly prone to carrying corrupted information, which can lead to strange effects in the Word document itself.
If you never actually open the Word doc in Word, you won't see the weird symptoms. That is, until you import the styled file into your layout program and then try to apply different styles.
Sometimes there's just one particular paragraph that won't "take" a style. In that case, open the file in Word and select everything in the problem child paragraph except for its final paragraph return. (If you can't see the paragraph return symbol in the text, click the Paragraph Symbol ... the pilcrow! ... in the toolbar to show them all.)
Then cut the selected text, leaving the empty return sitting by itself in the line. Delete the lone paragraph marker, hit Enter/Return to insert a new one, and paste the paragraph text back in. Do a Save As with a new name and try importing it into your layout again.
If you're having a problem with lots of text in the file (for example, importing it crashes the layout program ... that's a problem) do the same procedure for all the text in the Word doc in one fell swoop. Open it in Word, choose Edit > Select All, and then deselect the final return by typing Shift-Left Arrow. Cut the selection and paste it into a new, empty Word document. You'll use this document from now on, though you may need to reapply a style to the final paragraph. Save the new doc with a different name and try placing that one into your layout.
Why is this tip called "Maggie the File?" I'm just passing along a bit of insider Internet lore. On one of the editorial mailing lists I follow -- editors are the world's best Word experts -- a long-time list member named Maggie discovered this marker/break factoid buried in a Microsoft web page, along with the fix. Maggie posted about it a long time ago, and ever since, whenever a user on the list posts a problem they're having with a Word doc, a stock suggestion from long-time subscribers is to "Maggie the file." Now you know.
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Tip #2: Convert and Reconvert
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Here's another method for stripping out document corruption and style confusion that I found myself on a Word support web site. It sounds eerily like the InDesign troubleshooting technique of exporting an .indd file to InDesign Interchange (.inx) format and then opening that .inx file back in InDesign to reconvert it back to an .indd file.
Apparently, saving a Word document as an HTML Web Page (in Word, choose File > Save As Web Page), and then converting it back to a Word document, does the same thing as the InDesign indd > inx > indd technique. To convert the file back to a Word .doc format, just open the HTML file in Word, and from the Save As dialog box choose Microsoft Word as the format. The trip out to HTML/XML strips out gunk, and because Word understands its own HTML format, it can resurrect all the styles and formatting applied when you re-save the HTML file as a Word file.
For a complete guide to fixing corrupt Word files, try this Microsoft MVP page:
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/AppErrors/CorruptDoc.htm
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Tip #3: Import/Export/Import
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This is the tip I use most often when dealing with Word style bloat (unused styles that come along for the ride) in InDesign or XPress. It's especially useful when you choose to map Word styles to InDesign styles (a feature not available in QuarkXPress) so you have fewer styles to deal with. I think it's another way to Maggie a file, too, which would be handy if you don't own Word.
Here's how it works. Instead of importing the .doc file into the actual layout, import it into a new, temporary layout file, making sure it imports all the Word styles as well. You don't need to flow the whole file, just one frame's worth is fine, even if it has an overset.
Then click inside the text with the Type tool and export the story to Rich Text Format (.rtf), which is like a generic text file that retains all text formatting/style sheets, and if the layout program supports it, footnotes and tables. In InDesign, you do this via File > Export; in Quark, choose File > Save Text. Be sure to choose the Rich Text Format option from either program's dialog boxes, then name and save the file somewhere handy.
Now you can close your temp layout file, no need to save it.
In the actual layout file, import the .rtf file instead of the .doc file. In most cases your superfluous paragraph and character styles will disappear, and any problems with the styled text will go away. By the way, don't bother saving the Word doc as an RTF file; it doesn't degunk nearly as well as exporting to RTF from within the layout program.
My hypothesis is that even when you set InDesign to ignore unused styles (which you can do in the Place Options dialog box), some are imported anyway because the final paragraph marker has them in its "history." So, exporting it to RTF clears that out -- degunkifies it.
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YouTubes for DesignGeeks
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Had your fill with stupid human tricks and pre-teens lip synching Abba? Here are some YouTube videos I've been bookmarking to share with you. Some are funny, some just cool, but they all speak to the inner DesignGeek:
First IT Professional
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMa3QBqf3t4
Japanese Human Art
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYsDsEcfG0g
Content Aware Image Resizing (from SIGGRAPH 2007)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qadw0BRKeMk
Original Design Gangsta
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJexyQT0l1c
20/20's John Stossel: Graphic Design
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RqdZCo6vkI
And here's an oldie but goodie. Ever since I first saw it in 2005, I can't look at a Microsoft product's packaging without remembering this video:
Microsoft Designs the iPod Package
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEmZuieb7TM
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DesignGeek is a free monthly publication written by Anne-Marie "HerGeekness" Concepcion, a cross-media designer and authorized Adobe and Quark training provider. She owns Seneca Design & Training, Inc. in Chicago, Illinois (http://www.senecadesign.com/).
To subscribe to DesignGeek or read archived issues, go to its home on Seneca's site:
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Copyright 2007 by Seneca Design & Training, Inc.
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