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A symbol is an art object that you can create in a document and reuse multiple times. Adobe Illustrator allows you to create your own symbols for use in your projects.
Webalys Free Interface Design Framework - a Library of Graphic Styles, GUI Elements, and Vector Icons.
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Another huge time saver is
if you go to Window Symbols,
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we can create symbols, and these
are some symbols that are already here.
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I'm just gonna trash these for now.
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To create a symbol all you need to do is
drag the art into the symbol's panel,
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and a new symbol will be created.
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And this is for Flash, so that's fine.
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You can ignore all this and hit Okay.
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So now you can drag
an instance of this symbol
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into your document as
many times as you need.
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And because it's a movie or graphic clip,
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it's saving space in your document cuz
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it's not recreating this artwork any time,
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it's just an instance of the same thing.
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And these can be really helpful, so
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if you've already created of elements
that you wanna reuse over and over again,
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you can create libraries
like this using symbols.
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If I wanted to,
well I know I want a symbol here so
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I'm gonna drag one down here.
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Kind of line it up.
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Perfect.
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And if I knew that I wanted
to change this symbol.
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I can double click it.
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And it's asking me, are you sure you
want to edit the symbol definition.
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I'm gonna say Okay.
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And now I could.
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And if I changed it here, it would
change it in all the other instances.
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So in this way, this is a huge time
saver cuz if I just change this one,
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it's going to change all of them.
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So let's see.
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So if I said okay, great,
that's what I want.
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See, it changed this one too.
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All instances were changed.
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I'm gonna hit Cmd+Z or Undo cuz I
really do want it to say more info.
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[LAUGH] And then click off.
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Okay.
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If I wanted to change this, but
did not want to affect the other symbols,
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I could click it, and then hit unlink, and
that would make it back to regular art,
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not a symbol.
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I'm gonna hit undo.
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Also if you wanted to create another
instance of the same symbol and
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then change it, you could select it here,
drag in, and create a new one like that.
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Edit it and then start using it that way.
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So the symbol panel is really helpful and
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can really speed up your work
flow while you're working.
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Remember to save.
And next we're going to be organizing our
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layers.
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