Glossary of graphic design software, I.

Illustrator

extend. .ai file format
Adobe Illustrator is a vector-based drawing program. It is used to create print quality line-art drawings, such as logos, illustrations and maps. Its only major rivals are Freehand, from Macromedia and Corel Draw.

Although it uses its own proprietary file format, .ai, Adobe Illustrator can also save files in .EPS format for importing into page layout programs such as QuarkXpress and Adobe InDesign.

See also: Adobe, EPS, PostScript

Importing

extend: place, embed
External files and text are imported into graphics packages in a number of ways. In QuarkXpress, for example, the user creates a box and then navigates throught the file system until the required file is found. This file is displayed on the page, but is actually only linked to the original file.

InDesign and Ilustrator can also link to imported files like this. But they also have an option to embed an imported file, so that the original file may no longer be required. Of course, this means that the file size is increased.

Adobe Photoshop can also import of place an external file but, in this case, the imported image always becomes a part of the Photoshop file.

InDesign

Adobe InDesign is a comparatively new professional design layout package, that has been directly challenging QuarkXpress. Although, in many ways, resembling an earlier Adobe product - Pagemaker - InDesign claims some advanced features that set it apart from the competition.

Taking advantage of Quark's late adoption of Mac OS X, InDesign quickly snapped up large portion of the layout design market, especially in design and advertising agencies and has quickly built a loyal following.

See also: Adobe, QuarkXpress

Inkscape

Inkscape is an Open Source vector drawing applications, similar to Adobe Illustrator, Freehand and CorelDraw. It uses the W3C standard Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file format.