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Symbols

2:44 with Ashley Burke

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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