award winner!
January 6, 1998
Macromedia are well known for its award winning program FreeHand 7 illustration and layout tool. Users have long been able to produce stunning print and Web graphics with its powerful features, including graphics search and replace, dynamic blending and full color autotrace, etc. FreeHand 7 won the Editors Choice award from PC Magazine in April of 1997.
But that is the past. Now Macromedia prepares to release FreeHand version 8 and it is every bit as action packed. This review can only begin to cover the uncountable features - it would take a manual and a few months of experience to really show all that this program seems capable of doing for graphic creation and design. I can give you a glimpse into the range of features and show you some of the things I learned about it for this review. So let's get started.
Installation
FreeHand 8 is shipping for MacOS, Windows 95, and Windows NT platforms. I have been
told that the programs are essentially identical. I chose the "Typical"
installation with the MacOS taking advantage of the Colorsync and AppleScript feature
found in that environment.
The options for installing on the Windows 95 platform are listed in the setup dialog below. This is the version I reviewed. When it was complete the program and the files occupied 20.2 megabytes. Since 3.6 megabytes of that space is a tutorial, you could definitely squeeze it into less than 20 megabytes, even with the extra filters and converters you might wish to choose.
Of course, installation resulted in placing an icon for FreeHand in my start menu along with readme files and license information. The icon can be seen below.
Getting Started
Every time you open FreeHand 8 you are presented with an optional wizard to simplify your
construction of unique publications. Once you double click on the icon a wizard allows you
to begin a new file, open an existing file, use the previously loaded file, get help, or
launch a template.
Getting started with FreeHand 8 is simple for the inexperienced and, yet one of the nice features of this program throughout, is how it allows you to customize the interface. Since I am a novice with the program I used the wizards that were presented. These can be seen in the screen captures that follow.
I selected the publication wizard. The choices for templates was not available in my early preview copy, however, the wizards are available for Setup, Screen-based, Stationary, and Publications. Choosing any one of them results in three or four screens that ask you to input the number of colors you will use (important for the Internet publications), the sizes, grid lines, and so on. The FreeHand constructs the work session for you accordingly. If you do not use the wizards, these choices can be manually configured at any time using menu options.
I selected the letter size publication and stepped through several other dialogs as shown below. The wizard asks you to specify how many pages you would like to use, whether your document will be measured in inches or in picas, whether you would like to start with graphics, and how many colors you would like to use, etc.
Finally, the screen displays all of the pages you have indicated. In fact, as you can see from the screen below, all four of the pages I selected were displayed at once. My screen shot is a miniaturization of my entire desktop. If you look closely you can see that FreeHand places quite a few icons on the tool bar. These should be examined more carefully to give an idea of the depth of FreeHand's options.
Tool Bars
Tool bars are found just below the pull-down menus but they always invite my attention
first. These can be ordered in layers or side by side, just as those for the Windows
Explorer and many other programs.
The main tool bar shows some familiar icons from left to right: New File, Open File, Save, Import, Print, Undo, Redo, Cut, Copy, Paste, and Find. These should need very little explanation, but Find is rather unique.
The Find dialog begins in a deceptively simple display seen above. But notice that you can select Attribute. Notice, too, that the From and To fields show the word "White." Yes, indeed, these are search and replace tools for the colors found in any of the image attributes shown below. These include: color, stroke width, font, scale, and so on.
Once you specify what you are trying to find you can even change the color from any used in the publication to any other. The dialog for doing this is shown below.
If you are new to FreeHand this is probably a feature you never encountered before. And too, it may be hard to believe. But the dialogs make the entire matter simple, as seen in the previous and following images.
It is just that simple to change the color of images within the entire publication but selecting the range in the Change In field. This feature is an enormous time saver for altering prototypes of graphic images to suit your needs or the needs of a customer.
The next icons (following the binocular image) represent Align, Group, Ungroup, Join, Unjoin, Lock, Unlock, and six others beginning with the familiar "i" in a circle. That represents a box for information about the image as seen below. Notice that the apple is selected (it has selection box corners on it) and the dialog beside it shows the dimensions in both (x,y) and width/height units.
Other information in the tabs of that box results in Text information and Line information and so on, as seen below. Note that you can not only get the information about the image in these displays, you can change the characteristics in a jiffy from this simple icon access to the tool. Image manipulation could hardly be easier.
The Circle with an arrow-head represents a Transform Box seen below.
Reflected, Rotated, and Skewed
I just had to use that heading - I liked the sound of it. Usually, when my images
end up reflected, rotated, and skewed, it is not due to my conscious choice.
FreeHand gives you a great deal of control over Moving, Rotating, Scaling, Skewing, and
Reflecting. Those are the choices on the Transforming tool tabs, respectively.
Since most of you would know the meaning of Scaling and Moving, I have picked the
other three to exemplify how easy the work can be.
The following picture of my apple is Reflected 60 degrees.
.
Then I straightened the apple from its above alteration and Rotated it 60 degrees.
Finally, I restraightened it and then Skewed it 45 degrees as seen below. Anyone getting hungry for apples, yet? How about getting hungry for FreeHand? The ease of image manipulation is unparalleled in my experience.
Meanwhile, back on the toolbar
Remember, we were looking at the main toolbar, shown again below for convenience, and were
examining the Image properties icon and the Transforming icon. To the right of those
are three other unique icons: the Color List, Color Mixer, and Layers. These will be
examined below.
Perhaps the most wonderful thing about drawing with FreeHand is the drag-drop capability. This is not seen any better than in the Color List box. I have doctored the following image to illustrate just how this works. When I wanted to make the line drawing of an apple become red, I clicked on the Color List icon and opened the dialog seen below. Then I put the mouse on the red color (called apple skin in the image) and dragged it to the body of the apple. I let go, and viola! - the apple is painted red. This is much the same as a paint can works in most other graphic applications, but it is faster and more dramatic. Now, let's say I want the leaf to become green. I click the mouse over the color I want (leaf color) and drag it to the area I prefer to become green, and let go of the mouse.
As you drag the color, a small square of that color will follow the mouse. I simulated that in the image above to be sure I was perfectly clear about it. If you have not seen this before, it will most certainly be another of FreeHand's unbelievable features. Once again, it is as easy and intuitive as an interface can be. By the way, the leaf became green.
The tool for the Color Mixer is another terrific idea from Macromedia. With this tool, the color choices for any new color can be created with accuracy and then dragged onto the Color List box so you can use it, as I previously did. In the image below, I created a lighter green and a yellow. Once these are made, by simply sliding the color adjustment bars, they can be placed on the Color List.
The Layer icon on the main tool bar is for creating and using layers. Actually, this tool is a part of the Color List tool. It can be seen in the above image as the middle tab choice. It allows for all the layering effects you would expect to see in a graphics program.
For instance, you might have text in one layer and an image in another. Or, you might have each color in a different layer of the drawing so you can easily alter or eliminate a portion without disturbing the entire drawing. Layers with FreeHand 8 now make it possible to have true, live transparency effects without sacrificing edit ability. FreeHand users can make translucent graphics and overlay transparent vector objects on bitmaps with this tool. You can even vary the levels of opacity, transparency of color and other attributes and change them at any time. This may be the first Postscript drawing application that has these capabilities.
The tool bar above this paragraph is all about selecting, adding text, and drawing. As with the other tool bars, it is detachable and can float anywhere on the desktop (even outside of FreeHand's borders). The tools shown here are likely to be familiar to readers who have used graphic drawing and designing programs before.
The items, in order, consist of the selection arrow, the text editing tool, drawing tools for rectangles, polygons, ovals, lines, FreeHand, pen, freeform, bezigon (for altering curves), and a knife for cutting lines (yes, it works). The selection of the text icon will yield the following window within your document. The other shapes will present you with the expected cursor for dragging and creating an empty line-object.
Next we see the same four icons we looked at before for transforming, reflecting, scaling, and skewing. Finally, there is an icon for autotracing and one for magnifying your image. The right mouse click will produce a menu that allows you to zoom or unzoom to several different perspectives from 6% to a whopping 6400%. In addition, the right mouse button provides a rapid way to pick most of the tool bar choices you have seen so far without looking away from the image area.
The right mouse button also reveals a preferences dialog shown below. I chose the tab for Objects to show here, though any would suit my needs fine. Each of them include clear and detailed choices that reflect a professional design too. Notice the "Join non-touching paths" option for graphic objects and other check boxes. Not only are these easily changed options -- they are easy to find - at any time. They are a mouse click away like the zoom and unzoom features.
A good product provides many ways to accomplish the same goal and does it without getting in your way. FreeHand's interface stays true to this principle throughout the program. Consider the following tool bar. This is a box at the bottom of the display window in my earlier screen shot. Like all tool bars, it can be relocated.
This is yet another way to zoom an image and select the manner in which it will be rendered. This included a preview mode, a fast preview mode, a lines only, and a fast lines only mode.
Text Toolbars
Text is handled by FreeHand in a fairly advanced manner. The toolbar below tells the
story. Notice the choices for style, font, size, baseline adjustment, bold, italics,
and alignment.
Remember the Image Properties tool? That contains another convenient way to modify text. as you can see from the screen below. Many of the options are a repeat of the above tool bar.
If you look closely at the above image you see a smaller row of buttons under the text icon tab. These are provided for fine adjustment of text such as you might find in PageMaker or FrameMaker type products. The button marked "abc" is what you see above. I have chosen two others to display below.
The first is the button for horizontal scaling and the image on the right shows the choices under the button for conforming text to columns. These are highly sophisticated options for altering text and especially for a design program. It is wonderful to see such choice available because it means FreeHand will design copy to any degree of accuracy you need for any type of report, newspaper, magazine, multimedia, or Webpage specifications.
Menu Options
After all the detail has been provided for the tool bars you will find the menus provide
some overlapping. More importantly, they provide some additional options too.
I have just taken these in order from left to right. In the File and Edit menus seen above there is not much that will surprise you. There you simply see the options for opening, importing, exporting, printing, preferences, and so on. Added items like "Copy attributes" and "Paste in Front" are unique, but self explanatory.
View and Modify menus give you a chance to turn on rulers and grids, and to select the objects, lines, text, and so on that you wish to align, combine, group, or join.
The Text menu is, in many ways, a replication of the text tools we saw before. However, the spelling checker and "Convert Case" tools are a refreshing addition. The Extras menu really pushes FreeHand options ahead of the norm. For starters the Animate item. This allows you to separate layers and save them in a manner that dynamically blends them to generate morphing animations between different shapes, colors, and positions. These can be played back via the program called Flash in a web browser. The Color control menu item expands out, as others do, and reveals the follow sub-menu for creating effects.
Similarly, the Distort, Other, and Create items expand to create Blends, Embossing, and more.
The Windows menu gives you access to the toolbars, inspectors, panels seen here as well as performing the expected operations of document switching and management. The Help menu shows the path to the wizards I mentioned and provides online help as well as link to the World Wide Web.
But Wait - There's More
Here is a short list of still other features you will find in FreeHand 8:
You can save different views of the same drawing for rapidly comparing or examining. The multi-view perspectives can be given different names and even be created "at once" whenever a project is saved.
Lower RAM requirements for rasterization.
Experts to AI; ASCII; BMP; EPS (several); EMF; GIF; Illustrator ver. 1, 3, 4, 5x, 6, 7x, 8.8; JPEG; LRG; PDF; PICT; PNG; PTH; TIF; FreeHand ver 3.1, 4x, 5x, 7; RTF; and TGA.
Imports from ASCII; BMP; EPS (several); Illustrator ver. 1, 3, 4, 5x, 6, 7x, 8.8; CorelDraw 7; DCS 1 and 2; DXF, GIF, FreeHand ver 3.1, 4x, 5x, 7, 8; JPEG; PDF; PICT; PICT2; PNG; RTF; Targa; TIFF; and xResLRG.
Native support for TIFF.
Option to turn vector graphics into anti-aliased raster graphics within the FreeHand workspace.
Option to view invisible, non-printing characters such as spaces and carriage returns.
Text styles include kerning, effects like underlining, baseline shift, rules, and hanging punctuation.
Text conversion allows a way to quickly convert to all caps, small caps, and so on.
Graphic hoses to streamline the task of creating repetitive or randomized patterns on a page.
Rapid conversion from a WYSIWYG FreeHand graphic to HTML and preserves the original layout.
Compatibility
It seems like most companies try to make their products compatible with their own unique
line of software and often skimp on the converters that would allow smooth import and
export to those of the competition. Macromedia didn't skimp at all. There are
import and export converters to Adobe, Corel, Quark, and other Macromedia products.
In fact, FreeHand ships keyboard shortcut pre-sets that emulate other programs to help
users make an easy transition to its functions. This includes PageMaker, Photoshop,
QuarkXPress, Flash, Director, Illustrator, and CorelDraw. I proved the integration
to Photoshop by the simple act of dragging and dropping my image of an apple from FreeHand
to an open Photoshop file!
Requirements
FreeHand 8 required a MacOS, Windows 95, or Windows NT platforms.
Macintosh:
Widows 95/NT4(service pack 3):
Conclusion
It appears to this reviewer that you can easily alter any attribute of editable
vector objects at any time, including automatic search and replace tools. The
program is fast. The early preview copy I reviewed has not displayed the slightest
performance problem whatsoever. I am very critical about such issues - I will not
even review a release-version of Corel due to its high frequency of problems...so I am
very pleased with FreeHand in the important area of getting work done all day long without
hanging up the system and requiring a reboot. Of course, we all expect our programs
to perform this way. Apparently, some software companies don't share this desire - I
am happy to be able to report that Macromedia does share that desire and does deliver it
in FreeHand 8.
This is the perfect tool for graphic designers, technical artists, illustrators, web designers, and small business owners who need rapid prototyping, design, Internet graphic, webpage construction, or animation (for Flash or Shockwave users). It goes way beyond the capability of Illustrator 7 and CorelDraw 8. International language versions are available in several different tongues. I highly recommend it. FreeHand's street price is about $399 and upgrades go for $149. A competitive upgrade is about $199. Macromedia is located here.
Copyright © 1998 by Stephen Lankton
"Go Inside" is a David Boles Trademark