Adobe Illustrator Tips

Making figures in Adobe Illustrator

Table of contents

1. Introduction
2. Getting Started
3. Your First Figure
4. Quick Tips
5. Outside Resources

Introduction

Before you begin to learn how to edit your figures for posters, manuscripts, presentations, and so on, there are a few things you'll need to know.

First, Adobe Illustrator has somewhat of a steep learning curve. As opposed to our favorite digital sketchpads of the past (love to you, MS Paint), you do need to understand the tools and options to some extent. It's not as simple as clicking, dragging, and changing colors, although with practice you will be able to do so in no time.

There are several resources that have already been made for scientists using Adobe Illustrator (see Adobe Illustrator for Scientists on YouTube by Kevin Bonham), but don't limit yourself to just those. There are hundreds of videos tailored to graphic designers that are incredibly helpful for perfecting a polished graph.

Getting Started

For your first figure, it's best to use a template that someone else has used for a publication, so you get a sense of the dimensions that journals require. This is extremely important, because there is nothing more frustrating than spending hours fussing over the details of a figure, just to have to resize it later and, in most cases, start all over with many of those minute details. Ask your PI or colleagues if they could share an Adobe Illustrator (.ai) file that you can use.

If you don't have a template, that is okay. Open a new document, and then immediately edit the artboard. Often, AI will open with a right-sided panel, with a tab named 'properties', and towards the top of the 'properties' panel you can select "Edit Artboards'. This allows you to resize the workspace you're using. Also in that panel allows you to change the units (cm, inches, pixels) and add grids and rulers. I highly recommend using rulers, as this will help guide you when you are checking that your figure is balanced.

If you're doing your analysis using languages such as Python or R, you can save your plots as an .svg file, and then copy the code contained within that file, and paste into Adobe Illustrator. It will bring the entire plot into your artboard. It's easiest to save your plot with no text on your axes, because you will need to re-do them later. You can also delete the text in Illustrator if you prefer to keep the text as a reminder of what goes where. Tips on how to just delete the text without deleting the entire plot is covered below.

Your First Figure

Here are some initial things to consider as you're preparing your figures:

• For each figure, you'll want one *.ai file
• Be sure to set everything to the right color format (RGB) at the outset
• Before you get started, set your art board to the correct size. Journals will have 1-column and 2-column options for figures (some will have an option for 1.5 column figures). The journal should say exactly how big this.
• Use Arial font (this is required by some journals).
• Minimum font size should be 6 pts.
• Remove all of the text labels that you likely exported as a part of your original file and replace them with Adobe Illustrator text.

Quick Tips

• Cursor to select a group of objects: press v
• Cursor to select an individual object: press a
• Maintain aspect ratio when resizing an object: hold shift
• Bring guides to your artboard: click and drag from either the horizontal or vertical ruler on your artboard.

Outside Resources

• Adobe Illustrator for Scientists #5: Making Data figures: aligning