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In the world of vector graphics, Adobe Illustrator is the tool of the trade for most professional designers. Over the years, Adobe has crammed Illustrator with innumerable features to counter offerings from rivals Macromedia FreeHand, Corel Draw, and Deneba Canvas. It's a powerful program for print projects, such as posters, brochures, and package design. When it comes to Web graphics, however, Illustrator has been noticeably lacking. Version 9 not only addresses that shortcoming, but it streamlines lots of normally tedious design tasks.

Instead of piling on more tools, Adobe has reworked what's already there to deliver a far more efficient version of Illustrator. New Web features include support for Macromedia Flash and scalable vector graphics (Adobe's open-standard answer to Flash), commonly known as SVG. Vector graphics files aren't photo-quality the way bitmaps are, but their smaller sizes are ideal for online objects, such as a Web banner displaying irregular shapes and giant type. Also new to Illustrator 9 are a Web-safe color picker, a Pixel Preview mode, transparency controls, and re-editable Live Effects. Adobe has also made it easy to drop an Illustrator object into Photoshop or GoLive for editing.

Illustrator is priced comparably to its rivals at $399. Upgrades from earlier versions cost $149, and if you use another Adobe program or a competing program, Illustrator 9 costs $249.

If you've used other Adobe software, Illustrator's interface shouldn't take long to pick up. The 435-page manual and extensive online help provide clearly worded explanations. However, novices should look for additional help (even a class) to master the 105MB of features inside this capable program.

Web-Wise Illustrating

Illustrator's new SVG export command ensures that your entire Web page remains visible when site visitors resize their browser windows--the scale of the layout will conform to the frame. The only catch is that Illustrator can't reopen SVG files it has created. Instead, you should save the project in Illustrator's .ai format in order to re-edit and export updated SVG artwork. Although the extension remains .ai, Illustrator 9 uses Adobe PDF as its core file format, allowing easy import and export of files created in Illustrator, without damaging complex layouts or losing other file features such as fonts. The PDF format also contains settings for font embedding, color management, compression, and security to ensure high-quality printing. Adobe strategists say that forthcoming versions of Acrobat Reader will open, view, and print PDF-based Illustrator files. (Illustrator 9 can open and save files all the way back to version 1.0.)

I also liked the new Release to Layers command, which redistributes object artwork into separate layers so you can export them as a Flash (.swf) file or piece together a Web animation in Adobe Golive 5, LiveMotion, or Photoshop 5.5. Other Web functions include a Pixel Preview mode that shows how your vector drawings will look when rendered into pixels for use online; Web-optimizing controls that help you strike a balance between image quality and file download time; and a Web-safe color palette that uses only browser-compatible colors. And to ensure that intricate illustrations load quickly, Adobe's new anchor point reduction option minimizes the number of handles defining the shape of objects inside a drawing.