In a tip a while back, I discussed creating Custom Strokes by selecting “Stroke Styles” under the Options menu of the Stroke palette and then pressing the New button. What I didn’t mention is that Custom Stroke Styles created in one layout can be saved for use in other layouts. After designing your Stroke, click OK, and from the list of Strokes in Stroke Styles window, select your new design from the list and click the Save button. Name the file, locate a folder to which you’d like to save it, and click Save again. (You can save multiple Styles to the same file by Command-clicking [Control on PC] to select more than one Stroke name.) This saves your Stroke(s) to an “.Inst” file, which can be brought into any other layout by selecting “Stroke Styles” under the Stroke palette’s Option menu, clicking the Load button, locating the saved Stroke(s), pressing Open and then OK.
Tip provided by Jeff Witchel, Certified Adobe® Training Provider.
Author: jeff witchel
Jeff Witchel graduated from Pratt Institute in 1973 with a B.F.A. (Cum Laude) in Advertising Design and Visual Communications. He has been an award-winning advertising art director, writer, designer, illustrator, and TV producer ever since.
Before starting his own advertising agency in New Jersey, Jeff built his career at top New York ad agencies such as Young & Rubicam, Grey Advertising, and Wells, Rich, Greene. Over the years, he has created award-winning work for many clients including AT&T, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Jell-O Pudding, The Plaza Hotel, and Pfizer. His many prestigious awards include N.Y. Art Directors Club Gold Award, One Show Gold Award, N.J. Art Directors Club Award, multiple Andy Awards, Graphis Annual, numerous readership awards, plus an Emmy Award nomination.
Jeff is a self-taught computer artist with over 19 years of experience. His initial introduction to the computer was with PageMaker, but he switched to Quark 1.0 when it was first introduced in 1987. Having arrived on the desktop publishing scene so early, Jeff became the “go to” guy for answers when others started getting into computer graphics.
As an Adobe Certified Expert, he’s provided online support for Adobe and is now an Adobe Certified Training Provider for both Adobe Illustrator CS2 and Adobe InDesign CS2. Jeff is one of just a handful of Adobe Certified Instructors in the New York metropolitan area. He also is a Quark Certified Expert in QuarkXPress 6 as well as a master of Adobe Photoshop and related applications. He counts among his training clients ad agencies, design studios, magazines, illustrators, and photographers in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maryland.
