Started using Illustrator about two months ago and got lost from time to time and had to spend hours trying to unravel my mistakes. This book is wonderful, it is easy to use and is a big help to the novice. I would recomend it to anyone that wants to get to know the product.
Very happy with this purchase!

The book made light work of the subject. As a novice i was able start producing work in a short time.

I have completed many of the Adobe Classroom in a Book series.
I have come to the conclusion that Adobe can do better.
Many times the structure and sentences are confusing.
Adobe could do a better job if they did an advanced version of the Learning Visually series. That is really what these books are all about, yet many times the reader must reread a simple sentence many times to decipher the true meaning of simple tasks.
I hope with with all their billions they could afford to overhaul the training material for their avid fans (no pun intended).

For anyone attempting to learn the Adobe software, pick up this series. I have used it in Illustrator and Photoshop and they were highly informative and helpful. :)

This is certainly the first book you need to get started with Adobe Illustrator.
Illustrator Classroom in a Book provides practice lessons using most of the features of Adobe Illustrator but does little to explain the hows and whys of the tools. Follow the instructions precisely, and you'll be ready to tackle your own artwork. But skip a step or misunderstand an instruction and you can get lost. This is not a book for the impatient student.

I am new to Illustrator and the Adobe programs in general, and from that perspective, this book was ideal. It got me much more comfortable with the work environment to the point I found myself actually wanting to use the program to perform design tasks.

This book is not comprehensive. Some things (just my list) this book does not cover, but are essential to professional users of the program:
1. Graphics tablet features.
2. Creation of Flash symbols/integration with Flash.
3. Keyboard Shortcuts.
4. Charts/Graphs creation (this is most likely the most common commercial use of the program).
5. The pathfinder effects (these very important tools are briefly touched upon, but are essential for good use of the program and really really counterintuitive).
6. A bibliography or resource list.

I feel this book really should have shipped with the program. Like many software developers, Adobe asks a-lot when it does not provide a manual with such an expensive program. Adobe Help has much improved with CS3, but it's not the same as a true manual.

Illustrator itself is a decent program that has much improved with CS3. It's still not ideal, and really gets more attention than its competitors largely through Adobe's ingenious marketing of the "creative suite."

I already knew how to use Illustrator before I got this book, but it showed me just how much I have to learn. The steps could be a little clearer, but other than that, they are easy to follow and/or figure out.

A fairly intuitive tutorial. However, a lot of the basic stuff I already knew, so I breezed through about a third of the book. The lessons were a lttle disappointing in the some sections. Rather than creating a full piece as in some of the books, it was little snipets, kind of jumping around. Didn't flow as well as I would have liked, or as in depth. Some of the lessons would have been confusing had I not had a previous working knowledge of the software.

...it seems so close to the CS2 book that I wonder why they bothered to write a whole new book, rather than simply add a new section covering Live Art (the only major new feature of which I'm aware). I'm admittedly biased because I'm soured on Adobe Systems for sending my software to an address in their system that hasn't been used in 7 years (WHY do they keep that information anyway?) and delaying delivery for so long that I cancelled the order and am staying with CS2. I would have returned the book, but I'd installed the tutorial files from the CD ahead of getting the Illustrator CS 3 software, so now I'm stuck with a book I can't use.

This book was a great help for me. I am new to the software and it walked me step by step throught each tool and function.

I'm sure the book is very informative. However, for the second time, the book that was shipped to me contained an instructional CD did not work in any of the computers in which I inserted the CD.

I purchased this book for a class that I was taking and to be a beginner to Illustrator it was very useful and the directions were easy to follow. I would recommend this book to anyone who is learning how to use this program for the first time.

This is an okay product. I don't really enjoy it but needed it for a college course. It is very basic and repetative. It may teach you a few new tricks but most things you could probably find out on your own.

Can anyone who already has this text please give an honest review? It would be so helpful!
Thanks!
Interested customer

At the time this was the only available book for Illustrator CS3, so there wasn't much choice. It gives a decent overview of the program and is fairly typical of Adobe's Classroom in a Book series. Nothing to jump up and down about though. The lessons are easy to follow, even for beginners.
More thorough and in-depth books are apparently due out soon and should satisfy those wanting more details on actually how to get the most out of this latest Illustrator.

I know a thing or two about tutorials/manuals for I often test them as a beta-tester. The following comments are for all five of the CIBs. Yes, I have worked though each one.
As a bare start its ok but its just too much of a skimpy overview for the high price its requesting. This book should have been a PDF, unlocked, with the software. If you want a good intro at a reasonable price, don't buy this book. As for its content, I have found errors that should have been found long before it got to print. If you really want it, than wait a few more months for an updated edition. As for the pdf version, stay away from that too. Its DRM settings are overly restrictive, i.e., only 30 text selections over 30 days. There are much better books coming soon at the price with respect to its in-depth coverage. So buy them. :-)

It should be noted that the 3 people who have reviewed this book have given 5 stars to every book that they have ever "reviewed."



That's why I gave it one star - to balance out this scam.



Take a look at Diane Cipollo's reviews: 8 flippin' pages of 5 star reviews, never anything less. He must get paid by someone to do that.

I thought that I would learn more about Illustrator CS3 when I purchased this book, but it is so similar to the previous version that I feel I wasted my money.

This book is the next best thing to taking a class. That's the best way I can think of summarizing it.

I'm not even half way through this book and I highly recommend it to anyone new to using Illustrator (CS3). The CD that accompanies the book (make sure that when you buy this book that it has THE CD!!!) has folders for each lesson with the files that are used in the book so you can learn to create the same images leaving you a feeling of having accomplished something in what could be a potentially confusing program at first. More visuals would be even better, but they did do a pretty good job of putting a lot of visuals of the screen shots and Icons within the paragraphs as they're talking about them.

Now that Adobe has released the latest upgrade for Creative Suite and Illustrator CS3, it's time to update your skills for this new version. This book by the Adobe Creative Team will help you do just that. The Classroom book series is the official training series for Adobe software. As in earlier editions, the Classroom book allows you to learn at your own pace and concentrate on the chapters that you need for your current project. Each chapter has step-by-step instructions for simple projects that give you hands-on practice using Illustrator's creative tools. At the end of each chapter is a Q & A review. You will also find "Exploring on your own" challenges. When you have finished, you will have a solid background in Illustrator basis, some advanced features and the new CS3 features. The book is divided into chapters covering major areas of the software which makes it a great reference book for quick and easy-to-find answers.

The Adobe Creative Team authors begin the book with an overview of the new CS3 features and follow with a tour of the new workspace which includes short, step-by-step instructions for how to use the panels, tools, artboard and more. Selections and aligning objects are the next topics and following that are creating shapes, using Smart Guides and Live Trace. The Pen tool works differently in Illustrator than it does in Photoshop. The authors teach how to use the Pen tool to draw paths and work with anchor points. Next they discuss all about color including the new Live Color feature, Color Guide Panel, Color Palette, Color Groups and creating art with color, gradients and patterns. They also show how easy it is to create our own patterns.

Type plays a large part in Illustrator graphics for advertising, webpages and other text-enriched projects. The authors discuss some features that make Illustrator such a popular software such as text import, Area Type options including columns and threading type between areas. Of course, they also discuss type basics such as reshaping and warping text, text on a path and type outlines.

The layers feature in Illustrator adds flexibility and creativity to your workflow just as it does in Photoshop. The authors discuss the Layers Panel and appearance attributes such as styles, effects and transparency. There are four brush types in Illustrator and you can also create your own brushes. The authors show how to do this as well as the many ways to use brushes.

You may think that vector graphics cannot benefit from Photoshop-type styles and effects but the authors show you how to use effects to add texture to your vector art. They also show how to use the 3D Extrude feature to convert 2D to 3D objects and how to map Photoshop art onto 3D objects. Next, they discuss how the integration between Illustrator and the other Adobe software has been improved with this new release. They cover symbols, instances and Flash integration as well as embedding Photoshop art into Illustrator files and exporting layered Illustrator art for use in Photoshop and InDesign. The authors close the book with a discussion of print basics such as color separation.

The CD includes files for the lessons and training videos from lynda.com and Total Training.