I've been using Adobe Illustrator for about ten years. When I'm designing a logo, Illustrator is my application of choice. For my money, if you can't build a logo that can be blown up as big a a billboard without jagged edges, you ain't got squat. Flexibility is the bottom line and only a vector graphic affords that flexibility.

Like many Illustrator users, I tend to fall back on the tools with which I'm most familiar. As a conservative estimate, I'm a regular user of around 70% of the tools and options. This is usually enough to accomplish what I need to do. But I have to admit, once in awhile, I wistfully look at those other tools and wonder if I couldn't get things done quicker and smarter. Every so often I will click on the Illustrator “Help” link and look look up one of those mysterious functions. Many times after reading the explanation, I either don't understand the obtuse instructions or I don't see the benefit of using it.

When I got the chance to do a review on Ted Alspach's Illustrator CS3 Bible I hoped I would find out what I've been missing. After reading through several explanations of different Illustrator tools and functions, I'd have to say Mr. Alspach's book delivers the goods. If you are an ardent Illustrator user, it would be worth the savings in time alone to keep this book within easy reach from your workstation and here's just one example why.

Let's say I need need a graphic of a radar screen grid. I need 7 concentric circles, all equally spaced, with 5 radius lines out from the center, also equally spaced. Normally, I would click on the ellipse tool and start pulling out 7 circles and keep noodling with them until get them all equally spaced and lined up. Then I'd use the line tool to lay down my 5 radius lines, rotate, position, and eyeball them into position. It would take about 5 minutes to perform this little exercise.

On page 106 of the Illustrator CS3 Bible there is an explanation of an arcane little icon called the Polar Grid Tool. Double click this tool to open a dialog box that lets you type in the size, number of circles, and number of radius lines you want, then click okay. The cursor becomes a cross-hair that you can now drag out to any size oval or circle containing the circles and radii previously indicated. It took about 30 seconds to make a nice, very precise radar grid. (Also makes a really nice woven basket lid pattern if you add a high number of circles and radii.)

Now granted, it's not every day that I need a radar grid, and chances are that the next time I DO need one I'll have forgotten about the Polar Grid Tool. But with the “Bible,” I can look it up in the index, do a quick little refresher read on the tool, and I'm once again a concentric tool expert!

This book retails for $44.95 and is well worth the money in the time it will save. Beginners and long-time users of Illustrator can benefit from the detailed explanations of the basic tools as well as those seldom used functions that can be so handy just when you need them.