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Adobe Illustrator Tutorials : Adobe Illustrator 10: Cutting Your Design Time in Half with Variables"

by Dean Bagley

If you are a graphic artist or designer you will know how much time it takes to put together an ad, brochure or flyer, from placing the pictures, to typing headlines and formatting body copy. What if a client wanted you to create a campaign series of six ads, all with the same look, but with different pictures and text that change each month the ad appears?

Adobe Illustrator has released its latest version 10 with a new feature called "Dynamic Graphics." This utilizes their new Variables feature which means that text blocks and linked graphics can be assigned to a variable name saved in a Data Set and exported as an external XML file.

This external XML file can then be duplicated, renamed (such as "Ad 2") and modified to insert new graphics, and paste new text into the old text blocks. When this XML file is brought back into the Illustrator document, the design will immediately change to take on the new graphics and text as defined in the imported XML file.

Keep in mind that all placed images (EPS, JPG, TIF, etc.) must be Linked when placing them. The text blocks (can be either point-text blocks or area-text blocks) do not need to be linked.

This may sound complicated, so let me give an example. Here is an ad for a travel agency. The client wanted a campaign of ads that had the same format, but possessed different pictures and text to advertise a variety of special tours.

Each object was selected individually and assigned to a variable in the Variables palette.

• The photograph was selected and a variable created named "photo"
• The "Spring Special" was named "special"
• The "Time Travel" headline was named "headline
• The "Only $450" was named "subhead"
• The body text block was named "bodytext"

The icon to the left of the Data Set name was clicked to "capture" the variables into a Set. This was automatically named "Data Set 1". The Variables palette pop-out menu was selected and Save Variable Library chosen. This saved the variables set to an XML file, which is a common ASCII text file.

This XML file defines all the variables of the original ad and should be duplicated so the first ad can be accessed for later use. A simple word processor was used to open the duplicate XML text file. You will notice that it contains tags as with any HTML file. You will see a tag called "dataSetName=" with "Data Set 1" as the name. This can be changed to a different name so when the XML file is imported back into Illustrator, the name can clearly specify the contents in the Variables palette.

The word processor was used to replace the items described by the variable tags. You will note the variable tags and their content text in between paragraph (p) tags. This text is what must be replaced.

• The dataSetName was changed to "Ad 2"
• The Hill_town.jpg file was replaced with "Hercules.jpg", showing the famous statue of Hercules.
• The text of the "special" variable was replaced with "Hercules Special!"
• The "headline" text was changed to "Power Plan!"
• The "subhead" text was changed to "Only $550"
• The "bodytext" text had new text pasted in between its separating paragraph tags. These tags designate paragraphs in the text.

Back in the Illustrator document, the Variables palette pop-out menu was again selected and Load Variables Library chosen. A warning message always appears telling you that there are variables of the same name, and do you want to go ahead and import anyway? You should click OK for them to be replaced with your new changes.

On the screen nothing happened. To activate this imported library, the Data Set menu was selected and the new "Ad 2" set chosen. In just seconds the picture and all the text was replaced by the new items in the XML file.

In short, one master ad was created with variables. From this any number of other ads of the same format could be made just by modifying the XML code and replacing the variable items.

The XML file can be duplicated to have a copy for each ad desired. In the XML files all the variables can be updated so that the only effort needed to create a new ad is to, in seconds, load the new XML library.

What to watch out for!

1. The XML file is like HTML. It contains tags, such as <variable01> . It is mandatory that these tags remain intact. Some word processor programs think they're doing you a favor by reading tags for their formatting purposes, and getting rid of the tags. MS-Word is infamous for this. The XML file is "text only" or ASCII or ANSI. So, be sure when you are altering the XML file in a processor that you make sure it is keeping all the tags.

2. Special characters will also be a bomb to your XML file when you try to import it back into the Illustrator document. Ampersands (the & symbol) will create errors. Plus, all the special European language symbols, such as the "o" with two dots above it. Make sure any text you enter or paste into an XML file is straight from the ASCII or ANSI alphabet of characters.

3. XML is case sensitive. I pulled my hair out for hours trying to figure out why my pure ASCII text was still causing an error. It was due to my using a capital "P" in the tag <P> as opposed to lower case <p>. That one mistake cost me hours of delay. Make sure all your tags are lower case.

4. Area text blocks in Illustrator can be applied to variables. But, be careful! I have found that only a limited amount of text can be imported back into the document. Large quantities of text will be truncated in the variable text block when importing the XML file. You will wonder where all the text went.

He also writes and illustrates his own children's stories about his cartoon character, Baggy Gator, who has his own site at www.baggygator.com.

Dean Bagley is a writer, graphic designer and cartoonist. He writes instruction books for the Simon & Schuster/Prentice-Hall series of Against The Clock books on digital graphic design. The Adobe Illustrator books (Intro and Advanced) are at the top of the list in his book repertoire.

He also writes and illustrates his own children's stories about his cartoon character, Baggy Gator, who has his own site at www.baggygator.com