Illustrator

Create a symbol

You can create symbols from most Illustrator objects, including paths, compound paths, text objects, raster images, mesh objects, and groups of objects. However, you cannot create a symbol from linked art or some groups, such as groups of graphs.

  1. Select the artwork you want to use as a symbol.
  2. Do one of the following:

    • Click the New Symbol button  in the Symbols panel.

    • Drag the artwork to the Symbols panel.

    • Choose New Symbol from the panel menu.

    Note: By default, the selected artwork becomes an instance of the new symbol. If you don’t want the artwork to become an instance, press Shift as you create the new symbol. In addition, if you don’t want the New Symbol dialog box to open when you create a new symbol, press Alt (Windows) or Option (Mac OS) as you create the symbol and Illustrator will use a default name for the symbol, such as New Symbol 1.
  3. In the Symbol Options dialog box, type a name for the symbol.
  4. If you plan to export the symbols to Flash, do the following:

    • Select Movie Clip for type. Movie Clip is the default symbol type in Flash.

    • Specify a location on the Flash Registration grid where you want to set the symbol’s anchor point. The location of the anchor point affects the position of the symbol within the screen coordinates.

    • Select Enable Guides For 9‑Slice Scaling if you want to utilize 9‑Slice scaling in Flash.

Note: For a video on using symbols effectively between Illustrator and Flash, see www.adobe.com/go/vid0198.