Adobe Illustrator CC 2015 User Manual
Page 473
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Web graphics
Last updated 6/5/2015
Symbol workflow in Illustrator is similar to symbol workflow in Flash.
Symbol creation
When you create a symbol in Illustrator, the Symbol Options dialog box lets you name the symbol
and set options specific to Flash: movie clip symbol type (which is the default for Flash symbols), Flash registration grid
location, and 9-slice scaling guides. In addition, you can use many of the same symbol keyboard shortcuts in Illustrator
and Flash (such as F8 to create a symbol).
Isolation mode for symbol editing
In Illustrator, double-click a symbol to open it in isolation mode for easier editing.
In isolation mode, only the symbol instance is editable—all other objects on the artboard are dimmed and unavailable.
After you exit isolation mode, the symbol in the Symbols panel, and all instances of that symbol are updated
accordingly. In Flash, symbol-editing mode and the Library panel work in a similar fashion.
Symbol properties and links
Using the Symbols panel or the Control panel, you can easily assign names to symbol
instances, break links between instances and symbols, swap a symbol instance with another symbol, or create a copy of
the symbol. In Flash, the editing features in the Library panel work in a similar way.
Static, dynamic, and input text objects
When you bring static text from Illustrator into Flash, Flash converts the text to outlines. In addition, you can set up
your text in Illustrator as dynamic text. Dynamic text enables you to edit text content programmatically in Flash, and
easily manage projects that require localization in multiple languages.
In Illustrator, you can specify individual text objects as static, dynamic, or input text. Dynamic text objects in Illustrator
and Flash have similar properties. For example, both use kerning that affects all characters in a text block rather than
individual characters, both anti-alias text the same way, and both can be linked to an external XML file containing text.
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