Adobe Illustrator [closed]
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If you want to stay legal, then yes – you will have to pay for software. You may be able to get a student software discount as you are at college. You could also download a trial version to see if you like the software.
Ilustrator is excellent for creating vector based artwork and can export or save as PDF format.
Look up Creative Suite 4 Design Premium for Education on the adobe website - for $599 the student discount gives you the following if you qualify:
Adobe Creative Suite 4 Design Premium
InDesign CS4
Photoshop CS4 Extended
Illustrator CS4
Flash CS4 Professional
Dreamweaver CS4
Fireworks CS4
Acrobat 9 Pro
Adobe Bridge CS4
Adobe Device Central CS4
Version Cue CS4
Indesign, Illustrator are design industry standards - in the right hands they can facilitate considerable typographic finesse. I can’t really comment on the software you have been using but I understand they are more suited to an in-house corporate publishing market.
Check the spec of your computer before you buy though!
I downloaded a PDF Coverter Program. FREE
PrimoPDF Just search for the web site. It will convert many different programs to PDF files for export. Just remember you cannot change a PDF file after its converted. So this may or may not do what you need. I do this for customer proofs. I still use Adobe Pagemaker for my files. I know it’s old & out dated, but it still gets the job done. InDesign is the program that replaced Pagemaker.
Bob
you might look into inkscape. It’s free and open source. I haven’t used the recent versions, but it can do a lot of what illustrator does, and I believe it can export pdfs.
Sorry to have to close commenting on this thread, but it has strayed way beyond our subject matter.
We try hard to keep the Discussion useful for our core audience, which is centered around vintage letterpress use and equipment. Discussion and questions regarding which software programs are best suited for making drawings for letterpress work are better suited for the many design sites that specialize in this kind of information.