Creating A Swatch

[Sarah_Emily_Williams@adobeforums.com]

I have several logos that I use very often. Instead of opening files for these 10 or so logos and then copying and pasting I would like to make the logos into swatches or a swatch set maybe. Can I make the logos a swatch that I can open on start up of Illustrator and if so how do I create these swatches? Also, can I have text in these logos that are not outlined made into a swatch or must all fonts be outlined? I would appreciate any ideas about the best way to do this.

[Sarah_Emily_Williams@adobeforums.com]

Well, no response so maybe it was a dumb question or I didn't ask it correctly but I finally figured out how to make a logo a swatch that opens on start up of Illustrator. However, now I can't keep the entire image grouped together when I use the swatch. Does anyone know how to do that?

[Harron_K._Appleman@adobeforums.com]

Sarah,

Instead of a swatch, I'd create a scatter brush. (Create your logo, convert type to outlines, group, then drag into the brush palette.)

Add it to the startup file if you want it to be a permanent brush.

You can then drag out an instance of your logo to your artboard whenever you need it, and the grouping should remain intact.

=-= Harron =-=

[James_E._Talmage@adobeforums.com]

Why a Brush? Make it a Symbol.

Also, can I have text in these logos




Yes. Symbols can contain live text. A Scatter Brush can too, but not an Art or Pattern Brush.

JET

[Harron_K._Appleman@adobeforums.com]

Ah, Good point, James. I just haven't worked much with symbols, so that didn't occur to me.

Also, I assumed live text was unusable with all brushes, but I see you're right there, as well.

Edit - I see one has to "break link to symbol" in order to get back the live text in a placed instance.

=-= Harron =-=

[Toni Toomey]

The one disadvantage to converting the text to a symbol is that you get an opaque background--not so with a brush, which I wouldn' have thought of. You can create a pattern swatch with live text or outlined text, but getting the text placed in the pattern so it shows up once where you want it takes more futsing around than opening a master file and copying the text.

The delay in responses may be because a)We were doing what we were supposed to be doing, such as getting today's job done so it can be shipped (which is not half as much fun as participating in this forum); or b) we were messing around with the problem to check our solutions and see if we could come up with better ones. That's what I was doing until guilt pulled me back to today's job

:-\ Toni

[Sarah_Emily_Williams@adobeforums.com]

Thanks so much everyone. I will try a couple of these methods to see which works best for what I use them for.

[James_E._Talmage@adobeforums.com]

The one disadvantage to converting the text to a symbol is that you get
an opaque background




That doesn't happen here (unless, of course, I already have a fill applied to the text object). Been using Symbols which contain text objects for a long time.

JET

[Toni Toomey]

That doesn't happen here (unless, of course, I already have a fill applied
to the text object). Been using Symbols which contain text objects for
a long time.




Good point, James. I think I know what I was doing to get that result. Now I'll have to go play with it some more. I also like Harron's suggestion of making it a scatter brush.

Thanks, Sarah for asking the question in the first place. These are great ideas. Maybe you'll let us know which ones worked best for you.

Cheers, T