Adobe updates graphics apps Illustrator, InDesign, and Animate

Creative Cloud's core art apps have all been updated with speed improvements and new features, including simplified paths and better typography in Adobe Illustrator.

Continuing Adobe's wide-ranging updates to its Creative Cloud apps, the company has issued speed improvements and new features to Adobe Illustrator, Adobe InDesign, and Adobe Animate.

The major news for Adobe Illustrator users is that Adobe has confirmed it will be coming to the iPad some time in 2020. However, the new Mac version, Adobe Illustrator 2020, has multiple new features that are available now.

Adobe claims that large documents using multiple artboards will now save more than twice as fast as before. That saving now also happens in the background, so that you can continue working as your work is backed up.

One key tool that has seen an update is Path Simplification. As before, this takes a shape drawn with many anchor points, and reduces those in number while retaining the original shape or integrity. In Illustrator 2020, Adobe says that the feature is able to remove more points, making a path simpler to edit and also reducing the illustration's file size.

Page and document layout tool Adobe InDesign 2020 now supports web-style SVG graphics. Plus there is greater font control, and text columns can have rules automatically placed between columns.

Then if you're an Adobe Stock user, you can place any image in your InDesign document and the app will show you similar alternatives from the library.

Adobe Animate 20.0 is less ubiquitous than InDesign or Illustrator, but it's received a substantial update to help it work with both. You can now export all or some of an animation to any supported video format.

Illustrator's Path Simplication tool has been improved

Animate also has a revamped user interface which, tellingly, Adobe refers to as "touch-friendly," though it has stopped short of saying Animate will come to the iPad.

All of the updates to these apps are available now via Adobe Creative Cloud. Creative Cloud is a subscription service offering certain individual apps for either $9.99 or $20.99 per month, or a bundle of them all starting at $52.99 per month.

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5 Comments

Eric_WVGG 969 comments · 8 Years

About 5 years ago

> One key tool that has seen an update is Path Simplification. As before, this takes a shape drawn with many anchor points, and reduces those in number while retaining the original shape or integrity. In Illustrator 2020, Adobe says that the feature is able to remove more points, making a path simpler to edit and also reducing the illustration's file size.

holy shit, they're actually adding useful features this time around?

rcfa 1123 comments · 17 Years

Screw subscription. The Afinity app series (Publisher, Designer, Photo) do enough of what the bloated Adobe apps do, and for a fraction of the subscription, you own the apps.

Of the three apps, two are already on the iPad, so they are even in that respect ahead of the curve. Adobe apps have horrible code quality, to boot.

It’s a no-brainer to switch to Afinity, unless you’re tied into a multi-party workflow, over which you have no managerial control, that is centered on Adobe apps, in which case I hope you get to charge a hefty surcharge simply for having to suffer and endure Adobe junk.

camc 45 comments · 13 Years

Hmmm, let's see. There is zero chance we're going to edit PSDs on the iPad Pro that sits on my desk. Let's hope instead this new photoshop version fixes bugs & lags.

On my iMac Pro I'm experiencing several issues, one of the most annoying being the increasing lag PS shows when opening blank documents.

So far, the only workaround has been to restart the machine from time to time, which is frankly beyond excuse.

By the way, the annoying bug that flawed the "save as" routine since the Catalina roll-out seems gone right now.

MicDorsey 100 comments · 8 Years

rcfa said:

Screw subscription. The Afinity app series (Publisher, Designer, Photo) do enough of what the bloated Adobe apps do, and for a fraction of the subscription, you own the apps.

Of the three apps, two are already on the iPad, so they are even in that respect ahead of the curve. Adobe apps have horrible code quality, to boot.

It’s a no-brainer to switch to Afinity, unless you’re tied into a multi-party workflow, over which you have no managerial control, that is centered on Adobe apps, in which case I hope you get to charge a hefty surcharge simply for having to suffer and endure Adobe junk.

I have jettisoned Adobe over their evil and greedy subscription plan.

1) Evil because once you stop subscribing, you are locked out (sorry, your legacy files are toast).

2) Greedy for obvious reasons.

Yes, I have jumped on the Affinity bandwagon and while its products leave plenty to be desired, I want to reward them for at least trying. And I'm hoping they add much-needed enhancements.

fastasleep 6451 comments · 14 Years

rcfa said:

Screw subscription. The Afinity app series (Publisher, Designer, Photo) do enough of what the bloated Adobe apps do, and for a fraction of the subscription, you own the apps.

Of the three apps, two are already on the iPad, so they are even in that respect ahead of the curve. Adobe apps have horrible code quality, to boot.

It’s a no-brainer to switch to Afinity, unless you’re tied into a multi-party workflow, over which you have no managerial control, that is centered on Adobe apps, in which case I hope you get to charge a hefty surcharge simply for having to suffer and endure Adobe junk.

Yes, for many casual users, that may be an apt solution. For others such as myself, who use After Effects, Premiere, Audition, and others — Adobe CC is a veritable bargain.

MicDorsey said:

rcfa said:

Screw subscription. The Afinity app series (Publisher, Designer, Photo) do enough of what the bloated Adobe apps do, and for a fraction of the subscription, you own the apps.

Of the three apps, two are already on the iPad, so they are even in that respect ahead of the curve. Adobe apps have horrible code quality, to boot.

It’s a no-brainer to switch to Afinity, unless you’re tied into a multi-party workflow, over which you have no managerial control, that is centered on Adobe apps, in which case I hope you get to charge a hefty surcharge simply for having to suffer and endure Adobe junk.

I have jettisoned Adobe over their evil and greedy subscription plan.

1) Evil because once you stop subscribing, you are locked out (sorry, your legacy files are toast).

2) Greedy for obvious reasons.

Yes, I have jumped on the Affinity bandwagon and while its products leave plenty to be desired, I want to reward them for at least trying. And I'm hoping they add much-needed enhancements.

1) You can open your PSD or AI files in the aforementioned Affinity apps.

2) It's professional software, much of which these days is subscription-based to keep their business sustainable. It's cheaper than it used to be staying up to date with the latest Master Collection updates. As a result, we also get more frequent major feature and bug fix releases throughout the year, which is a vast improvement over the previous model as well. For anyone who makes any money at all in these apps, it's incredibly affordable. I pay for access to the entire suite of apps with just about a half hour of work each month — it's a no-brainer. If you're not making money with your software, there are plenty of other options out there for you that are much more affordable and probably offer everything you need.