Adobe Illustrator CS4 - Manual (Page 443)

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Chapter 14: Automating tasks
Automating tasks can save you time and ensure consistent results for many types of operations. Illustrator provides a
variety of ways to automate tasks by using actions, scripts, and data-driven graphics.
Actions
Actions panel overview
You use the Actions panel (Window > Actions) to record, play, edit, and delete individual actions. This panel also lets
you save and load action files.
Photoshop Actions panel
A. Action set B. Action C. Recorded commands D. Included command E. Modal control (toggles on or off)
Expand and collapse sets, actions, and commands
❖ Click the triangle to the left of the set, action, or command in the Actions panel. Alt-click (Windows) or Option-
click (Mac
OS) the triangle to expand or collapse all actions in a set or all commands in an action.
View actions by name only
❖ Choose Button Mode from the Actions panel menu. Choose Button Mode again to return to list mode.
Note: You can’t view individual commands or sets in Button mode.
Select actions in the Actions panel
❖ Click an action name. Shift-click action names to select multiple, contiguous actions, and Ctrl-click (Windows) or
Command-click (Mac
OS) action names to select multiple, discontiguous actions.
Play an action on a file
Playing an action executes the action’s recorded commands in the active document. (Some actions require that you
make a selection before playing; some can be executed on an entire file.) You can exclude specific commands from an
action or play only a single command. If the action includes a modal control, you can specify values in a dialog box or
use a modal tool when the action pauses.
Note: In Button mode, clicking a button executes the entire action—although commands previously excluded are not
executed.
1 If necessary, select objects on which to play the action, or open a file.
A
D E
B
C