Adobe Illustrator Classroom in a Book (2021 release)

Overall 4.5 stars.The workbook is useful and well-written. The exercises are practical with a lot of information. Minus half a star because the font size in the screenshots is so small I had to buy a magnifying glass for the first time in my life to read some of them. And minus one star because though the iPad version of the software was released in late 2020, and this is a 2021 version of the workbook, there is zero information in this book about the iPad version. They should have coordinated and included some side bars about the iPad version in the book. I think the iPad version is only meant for people who already have the desktop version - there are so many tools and capabilities that are not included in the iPad version of the software but are mentioned in the workbook and necessary to complete the workbook exercises.Since I’ve never used Illustrator before, and bought this workbook when I decided to try the iPad version, I didn’t know how many differences there would be. So instead of the 45 minutes recommended for each lesson in the workbook, I’ve spent 3+ hours for each lesson searching for the right tools/buttons and googling workarounds and/or discovering the tool doesn’t exist on the iPad version. So I was not able to fully complete the exercises in the workbook.If you plan to use this with the iPad version of Illustrator, and you know the limitations going in, and are willing to spend a lot of extra time trying to figure out where the buttons are (if they do exist) for certain tools highlighted in the workbook, then I do think this is still a valuable resource. However, if you do NOT want to fiddle around with unknowns, and only want to follow the directions exactly, then I suggest only using this book with the desktop version of Illustrator or wait and see if they come out with a workbook focused on the capabilities of the iPad.+ 1 star since the author did respond to me in a timely and helpful manner when I asked why the book did not include notes about the iPad. He said the lessons were not written for iPad and were actually written before the iPad version was released. He provided me a link to some tutorials for the iPad which he had created. I appreciated his responsiveness.I’m disappointed that Adobe is not more transparent about the downsides of the iPad version for people who have never tried Illustrator before, compared to the desktop. They do have a webpage where you can enter suggestions for future development, and read comments about what other people have recommended (a great place to search whether a tool exists in the iPad version). But they should have a list of all the tools available in both versions so people are aware without having to spend a huge amount of time searching.

I have used 3 of the Classroom in a Book books for college classes. I simply cannot learn from them. The instructions in the books are so vague that they cause confusion trying to find the icons and menus required to preform the exercises. All of the books contain errors because the programs have changed and the books are not always updated.Even if you can get past the above - beware!!! All Adobe programs function in a totally illogical way, so even if you can preform the steps in the CIB tutorials, you will find yourself vexed when you try to put the lessons into use in the real world because of some weird program requirement that will have you spending hours and hours trying to figure out what is preventing you from doing what you want to do.For Photoshop CIB, my computer met the Adobe specifications, but the downloadable exercises caused my computer to freeze, crash or to give me error messages when I attempted to complete the exercises. I would spend literally HOURS trying to complete an exercise because of the problems noted previously. By the time I had finished the extensive problem solving necessary to complete the exercises, I didn't retain anything about how to execute the function the exercise was supposed to teach.Every lesson takes approximately 3 to 9x longer to complete than the time indicated in the books. This means a "45 minute" exercise might take you 7 hours. I wrecked my InDesign CIB because I got to the point of such frustration that I ended up repeatedly smashing it against my desk while yelling profanities.The only reason to buy one of these books is if your college requires you to do so. You have my sympathies. If you are not required to use this book, just save yourself the $50 and watch YouTube tutorials instead. You'll learn a lot more with far less frustration.

It needs to come with a magnifying glass. The directions are tiny as hell .... not only that the directions are not that great , it’s just overall a boring book . I’m sure if they made the writing much BIGGER also I have studied Adobe before this book was a refresher . They had many directions that were long not giving short cut methods overall it would take a new learner very long . It just takes overall long time on top of that forever to read so no two thumbs down

These books are perfectly suitable for a TOTAL novice. If you’re like me and you’re an advanced novice/beginning intermediate, they’re going to mostly just cover stuff you already know. Also, it’s good to understand that these books DO NOT cover anything that you can’t already easily learn from any basic tutorials on YouTube or the Adobe site itself.I originally gave them a 3 star review but that didn’t feel fair so I bumped it up to 4 because they are good for what they are - books for complete beginners. The quality of the book and print itself are just fine, no complaints there. I’ll most likely gift all these books to someone who is a little newer than myself.

I bought this book because I needed to learn AI from the very basic on up. This book is absolutely phenomenal! When you buy the book you also get the web version as well. The web version has videos in addition to the instruction in the book which I find very helpful.This book is written with step-by-step instructions that are very easy to follow- even for a novice. There are files that you can download from the publisher's site that go hand in hand with the book's instruction. The instructions in combination with the files and the web version of the book have made it sooo easy to learn.As instructional books go this is the best book I've seen in a very long time. I will look for more books from this publisher for the other Adobe products.

As a beginner learning the ways of illustrator and photoshop this book and online guidance have really helped and really helps take you through everything - highly rate it along with a lot of patience😬

I received the book the day after, in very good condition. happy with the delivery service

c'est facile a lire et a comprendre