Product Description

The latest of Macromedia's award-winning software packages to join the MX family, Macromedia FreeHand MX brings the popular vector-based drawing and layout program into the present day. Whether you've built your career on FreeHand and can't wait to master the software's new features or you're just learning FreeHand for the first time, there's no faster way to get up and running with Macromedia FreeHand MX than Macromedia FreeHand MX for Windows and Macintosh: Visual QuickStart Guide. Updated by best-selling author Sandee Cohen to include plenty of new step-by-step how-tos and screenshots specific to Macromedia FreeHand MX, this task-based reference is the perfect tool for learning this visual program. The first few chapters provide an overview of the program before walking you through how to create sophisticated artwork using Macromedia FreeHand MX's many powerful features: layers and layering, points and paths, working in color, strokes and fills, creating text and text effects, and more. The final chapters explain printing, preferences and using artwork with other applications and the Web.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #502248 in Books
• Published on: 2003-05-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 480 pages

From the Back Cover
The latest of Macromedia's award-winning software packages to join the MX family, Macromedia FreeHand MX brings the popular vector-based drawing and layout program into the present day. Whether you've built your career on FreeHand and can't wait to master the software's new features or you're just learning FreeHand for the first time, there's no faster way to get up and running with Macromedia FreeHand MX than Macromedia FreeHand MX for Windows and Macintosh: Visual QuickStart Guide. Updated by best-selling author Sandee Cohen to include plenty of new step-by-step how-tos and screenshots specific to Macromedia FreeHand MX, this task-based reference is the perfect tool for learning this visual program. The first few chapters provide an overview of the program before walking you through how to create sophisticated artwork using Macromedia FreeHand MX's many powerful features: layers and layering, points and paths, working in color, strokes and fills, creating text and text effects, and more. The final chapters explain printing, preferences and using artwork with other applications and the Web.

About the Author

@AUTHBIO= Sandee Cohen is the graphics curriculum coordinator at the New School University Computer Instruction Center in New York City. In addition, she is also a frequent speaker at the Seybold, Thunder Lizard, and Macworld Expo conferences. She is the author of Macromedia Fireworks MX for Windows and Macintosh: Visual QuickStart Guide, Macromedia FreeHand 10 for Windows and Macintosh: Visual QuickStart Guide, and InDesign 2 for Macintosh and Windows: Visual QuickStart Guide.

Customer Reviews

Adaptation of help file not quite a QuickStart
I would have rated this book a one. I settled for two stars as I did actually learn a few things from it. This book is quite obviously an adaptation of a FreeHand 10 book (which I understand Sandee has written) as there are some remnants of v.10 functionality that has been changed and updated in MX. Ms. Cohen seems to have missed these. Inconsistencies, unnecessary repetition, gaping holes (Polygon options in the Object panel) and incorrect information - Page coordinates start at the top left of the page?
As an educator myself I find the sequence of information to be unintuitive; working with views before you even have anything on a page to view becomes a bit conceptual and difficult to grasp for the beginner.
Sandee, like almost everyone who writes a book on computer illustration, claims she has the answers to master the ever confusing Pen tool and Bézier curves, I understand them yet found myself reading Chapter 6's eight pages over and over again to figure out what her amazing insight was, especially with regard to connector curves. If you have never worked with a vector illustration package before, I would not recommend this book, you'd do better to print out the help file (which suffers from the same problems as this book), in fact, since they are so similar, I wonder if it's this book that is based on the help file or vice-versa. This book provides (almost) complete step-by-step instructions on using each tool and panel and Xtra and whatever (with some useful advanced functionality) but very little real life application or examples. It will probably serve me as a reference tool for particular functionality on certain tools but little else.

FreeHand MX Visual QuickStart Guide
A good and complete book for beginners and intermediate users