toggle

AAPL Stock: 502.21 ( + 4.54 )

MacNN News

Adobe abandons Freehand, pushes Illustrator

updated 10:00 am EDT, Thu May 17, 2007

Adobe abandons Freehand

Adobe has confirmed it will abandon Freehand, the popular illustration tool acquired as part of its merger with Macromedia. Although the company continues to sell Freehand MX -- last updated more than four years ago, it is now urging current Freehand users to migrate to Illustrator CS3, and says it has added features to that version of the application it hopes will make the migration "comfortable," according to a blog posting on the company's website: "Adobe does not plan to develop and deliver any new feature-based releases of FreeHand, or to deliver patches or updates for new operating systems or hardware. Adobe will, however, continue to sell FreeHand MX, and will offer technical and customer support according to our support policies," Adobe's John Nack wrote.

Adobe has also created a Migration FAQ (PDF) that explains the details of its decision not to update FreeHand, and talks about those Illustrator CS3 features added to make FreeHand users more comfortable.

The company is providing a special upgrade to Illustrator CS3 for registered owners of FreeHand, offering the newly released vector tool for $200. The upgrade is available worldwide through the Adobe Store and through the Channel; however, there is no direct FreeHand-to-Creative Suite 3 upgrade.

In addition, the company is offering several resources to help users migrate to Adobe Illustrator. The FreeHand to Illustrator Migration Guide -- available as a PDF and in printed form -- is targeted to designers and illustrators: the four-color manual provides a graphical comparison of the FreeHand and Illustrator workspaces, along with differences in terminology, features, and functions between the two applications.

The more technical Migrating from FreeHand to Illustrator is designed for production managers, IT managers and designers, and offers tips and suggestions for moving legacy FreeHand content into Illustrator, handling different file formats, outputting files, and other information.

by MacNN Staff

(32)

TAGS :

Graphics/Web Design

Share the Article

Facebook Twitter Delious Slash Dot Digg

toggle

Comments

boulder1259
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: May 2002

0

05/17, 10:56am | report spam | close Reply |
Hmm...

It seems as though they've abandoned Illustrator, too, because when was the last time there was a significant Illustrator update (I mean something more than just changing the version number!)

fashizzle
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Aug 2003

0

05/17, 11:14am | report spam | close Reply |
Freehand, R.I.P.

Anyone in the prepress industry knows that Freehand is king over Illusrator. When Adobe introduced that BRAVO rendering for Illustrator, it was very easy to make it choke on 1/3rd the paths of Freehand. I've used both versions since 1.0, including the ghastly Illustrator '88. Adobe never caught up to the ease-of-use and sheer power and intuitiveness of Freehand. It just sucks now that there is no alternative to the Adobe monopoly of professional vector apps. Sure, some less powerful alternatives exist, but none near as powerful as Freehand. Way to go Adobe. Step 1 - buy competition, Step 2 - kill off competition, Step 3 - stagnate the market with a kludgy, less powerful app and never update it.

chucker
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Mar 2007

0

05/17, 11:31am | report spam | close Reply |
another monopoly win

Adobe is the microsoft of graphics software - well we all knew that.

Also with Canvas dying a slow death from the PC centric company that bought it, it looks like doing drawing on a mac is getting pretty difficult.

Ironic since all those years ago, the only thing my mac hating friends would actually concede to mac users, was they were way ahead for drawing programs.

suhail
Senior User

Joined: Nov 1999

0

05/17, 12:14pm | report spam | close Reply |
I was afraid of that�

Freehand was my faivorite vector application. Illustrator SUCKS in making arrow-heads, round corners for boxes, and many other features. Freehand also rules when it comes to selecting objects below the upper object, Illustrators solution for this is totally retarded. I hope Adobe takes the good from Freehnad and implements it in Illustrator (Command Click).

Art Vandelay
Professional Poster

Joined: Sep 2002

0

05/17, 12:18pm | report spam | close Reply |
Already was dead...

Macromedia effectively killed it when they stopped updating it and removed it from their Studio suite. Macromedia's apps had two major upgrade cycles (MX 2004, Studio 8) before Adobe bought them and Freehand was never updated. So no shock here, it was already dead.

designr
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Apr 2002

0

05/17, 12:55pm | report spam | close Reply |
This is a shame...

Without giving away my age, I have been using both Freehand and Illustrator professionally since each was first released. Freehand has always been the better product. It's tools have always been easier to use and more intuitive.

Bottom Line: I can draw pictures and design logos far faster and with much greater precision in Freehand than in Illustrator.

They should have abandoned Illustrator!

suhail
Senior User

Joined: Nov 1999

0

05/17, 01:30pm | report spam | close Reply |
RE: this is a shame�

I do agree, if I was givin a choice I would've chosen Freehand over Illustrator. Freehand is much easier to use and its tools are very relevant to product design, logo design, etc. It has a multipage feature which is also nice. The only drawback I could think of, which Adobe could have easily fixed, is the printing engine it did not generate PS as reliably as Illustrator.

dynsight
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: May 2005

0

05/17, 02:22pm | report spam | close Reply |
Disagree somewhat

I have used both Freehand and Illustrator, and I like Illustrator much better. I found the pen tool easier to use, and I actually like the paths and appearance windows/inspectors. Layer management was also better.

Adobe was fair in this. They abandoned the weak imageready for the far superior Fireworks--- here they made a choice. Very few companies keep different solutions for the same problem/market.

It would be different if Illustrator were the pro product, and Freehand the "home" or entry level...but they were both geared to the pro.

hokizpokis
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Jan 2007

0

05/17, 03:26pm | report spam | close Reply |
major lawsuit pending

sell your adobe stock now...

Adobe killing Freehand is very bad for everybody!!

A huge disaster for the media business!!

the Feds should be burning the Adobe monopoly down very soon!!

Death to the Adobe monopoly

brainiac_7
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Jun 2005

0

05/17, 03:59pm | report spam | close Reply |
ces't la vie

I like Illustrator; please don't hate me. Take cold satisfaction in knowing that I loved ImageReady and hated Fireworks.

kaisdaddy
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Apr 2005

0

05/17, 04:11pm | report spam | close Reply |
I wish someone with...

...some sense would buy Canvas from ACDsee and get the import / export rendering to work properly. Canvas would be a serious viable contender, since it does both bitmap and vector editing in one program - BUT - it just has trouble with several file formats that it says it supports.

I've been using Canvas for years (since version 6) and it's my go-to program but now more than ever, it needs to be bought and updated.

Other than someone rescuing Canvas, maybe this would be a good time for Corel to bring their coreldraw suite to the Mac?

ruperts
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Jul 2001

0

05/17, 04:29pm | report spam | close Reply |
big gready Adobe

now I have to buy an overbloated Illustrator CS3

chucker
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Mar 2007

0

05/17, 04:48pm | report spam | close Reply |
for better of worse

irrespective of whether freehand or illustrator was better, the point is that i now have less choice than I had before.

This was not the utopian free world that Dubya promised me, I feel betrayed,

hey bring on the communists

MacnnGregor
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Apr 2004

0

05/17, 07:43pm | report spam | close Reply |
Business

If the free market were really about fair competition with the customer getting the best product, there would be a way for someone to buy Freehand and run with it.

Obviously the market is all about ownership, power, and control with a little bit of middle school playground arrogance in the mix.

I don't know which was better. In my last job designers used Freehand, but PR people used Illustrator.

What I hope we see here is that the free market needs to be tweaked some more and next time you here some say that "market forces should decide X and Y" remember that board rooms decide whether market forces are ever even applied and corporate gamesmanship do not make for a healthy life, much less a vibrant, healthy economy.

vanhorn
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: May 2007

0

05/17, 08:10pm | report spam | close Reply |
Sic transit gloria mundi

I always figured that if you started out with pen and pencil you were likely to prefer Illustrator, if you started with waxers, X-Acto knives, RubyLith, acetate overlays, and cold type you probably were going to prefer FreeHand. I vastly prefer FreeHand and every time I've used Illustrator it's been painful.

I suppose I'll pony up and get the current Illustrator, eventually I'm sure I won't be able to run FreeHand, but if it were any more expensive I wouldn't bother.

For those who will continue to use the finest vector tool ever created, the diehards will continue to support each other on the Freehand list: http://www.domainvanhorn.com/mailman/listinfo/freehand

Van (moderator of said list)

chirpy22
Junior Member

Joined: Jan 2006

0

05/17, 08:31pm | report spam | close Reply |
xara

Xara is a serious contender to Illustrator. It just needs to be ported to Mac. I kept telling people in the Adobe forums that Adobe was going to do this, but they were like, "No, wait, Adobe hasn't said anything about the future of FH. There's always a chance." Yeah, right, whatever.

cebritt
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Mar 2000

0

05/17, 10:24pm | report spam | close Reply |
New product

I heard that Adobe is combining Freehand with Illustrator and releasing a new product called Frustrator!

(It's an old joke but it may be the last time I get to use it)

rubaiyat
Dedicated MacNNer

Joined: Feb 2006

0

05/17, 11:13pm | report spam | close Reply |
Freehand was buggy...

...but was an excellent drawing program. You only had to look at the results.

Illustrator has unfortunately also become buggy and since v8 has become a mess of pallettes and clumsily implemented GUI and procedures.

Long time Pagemaker and Adobe users have become used to the mess, but despite (or because of) the fact I have used Illustrator since v1, I find it has all gone off the rails.

If Adobe takes just one thing from Freehand, it should be "Paste inside"... bleedin' obvious as opposed to Mask and all the other rubbish you have to go through to make it just work.

ruperts
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Jul 2001

0

05/18, 03:21am | report spam | close Reply |
oh well,

no more choice

ruperts
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Jul 2001

0

05/18, 03:24am | report spam | close Reply |
Freehand was buggy... but

it hadn't been updated for several years and still had features like the one you mention that beat AI hands down..

Bitnuke
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Aug 2004

0

05/18, 06:34am | report spam | close Reply |
Killustrator

typical Adobe.

Restart Altsys, restart Freehand. Freehand rules!

Matthew Davidso
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Mar 2003

0

05/18, 09:08am | report spam | close Reply |
three apps in one merger

Professionally, I used ImageReady instead of Fireworks I used GoLive instead of Dreamweaver I used Freehand instead of Illustrator

I know how to pick the winning horse. Let me say this merger is the worst thing to happen to me.

Freehand is the worst kick in the pants. I have years of documents that I occassionally have to update. They could at least fix the grid bug if they're going to continue selling it. Illustrator does not handle multi-page layouts like freehand. For that, you need InDesign.

cebritt
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Mar 2000

0

05/18, 10:53am | report spam | close Reply |
CorelDraw for Mac...

...was pretty decent. And Persuasion was much better than PowerPoint.

Hi Tech Historical Trivia: The two brothers who wrote Freehand, Altsys I think, had no idea that Adobe was working on Illustrator and were very surprised when Illustrator was released about the same time as Freehand.

Chris Paveglio
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Jul 2002

0

05/18, 12:21pm | report spam | close Reply |
I began a long time ago

when Macromedia decided to sell off KPT and stop focussing on the creative side and focussed too much on the web apps they had. If they kept KPT/Painter et al and hung onto FH as well as their web stuff they could be around and we'd have some competition. But that decision was like 6 years ago I think

MacGeek50
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Mar 2006

0

05/18, 02:29pm | report spam | close Reply |
I'll be using Freehand

until it won't work any more, then I'll switch to ID. Illustrator bites. I imagine if you're into strictly drawing Illustrator is OK, but its handling of text and user interface is really bad.

mqualben
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Nov 2001

0

05/18, 06:16pm | report spam | close Reply |
InDesign sucks 4 xslt

I hate Adobe dropping FrameMaker for Mac even more than them dropping FreeHand.

Ridley
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: May 2007

0

05/19, 03:40am | report spam | close Reply |
Sell It

What are you afraid of Adobe. Oh that's right, that someone will take a product that hasn't been updated in 4 years and with a mere universal binary update make it kick the c*** out of Illustrator.

It makes me cry to think that after all the years I've be using FreeHand, back to the Aldus days . . . that a force to learn Illustrator is the "answer", nice. I like how Adobe uses the bonuses that the move to Illustrator will be nice because it integrates with Adobe Flash, Dreamweaver, and Fireworks. Hey Dumbasses, that's exactly why I loved FreeHand so much! Oh yea, and how I could have multiple pages of multiple sizes, and how I could opt+click down objects, and, and, and.

BasicShape
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: May 2007

0

05/19, 11:01am | report spam | close Reply |
I've been trying to...

"migrate" to illustrator for 7 years! but guess what, FreeHand is superior hands down. Adobe, instead of making every update to Illustrator just a bloated, a** impacted behemoth of a program, get back to basics and study why Freehand is better and put it into AI.

Adobe can also learn a lot from modern programs like Luxology's Modo or Apple's motion, to really update how we work with these programs. I can't beleave it's 2007 and I still can fill a second, 20 in monitor with an s-load of pallets! I was doing that in '92.

On that note, sell FreeHand to Apple and see what they can do with it. I'm sure they can take it an really run with it. R.I.P.

chirpy22
Junior Member

Joined: Jan 2006

0

05/21, 09:39pm | report spam | close Reply |
@ chris p

Macromedia never owned KPT or Painter. That was MetaCreations. And Fractal Design before that.

Terrin
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Jan 2006

0

05/21, 11:54pm | report spam | close Reply |
Prefer Macromedia

I never liked Illustrator because it wasn't as intuitive as Freehand, and Adobe products really didn't integrate well with one another, whereas Macromedia products did.

However, to Adobe's credit, it has done some nice work integrating Macromedia products into its own, as well as updating its own products. I haven't played with the new Illustrator, and I hope it resolves some of these problems.

jog
Forum Regular

Joined: Oct 2000

0

05/23, 05:59am | report spam | close Reply |
grid bug

workaround: re-map the default shortcuts for "show grid" / "snap to grid" to e.g. F6 / F7

mapgrrrrrl
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: May 2007

0

05/31, 05:08pm | report spam | close Reply |
Save Freehand for maps!

I am a professional cartographer/graphic designer. Ive used Freehand since 1995, so much so that it's extension of my body. I've used both programs extensively, and Illustrator still does not work as well as Freehand specifically for information rich graphics such as complex base maps. Features too numerous to mention here, but gladly listed for anyone interested. The company I work for has a vast archive in Freehand, and noone can expect all of that to be converted. There are many of us that dont want to see Freehand go. After all, Corel Draw is still around...who am I to say that it should be eliminated just because I prefer Freehand or Illustrator? Yes, I really really want that "outdated and possibly unmaintainable" codebase for my intel mac and for tiger and beyond. I would do anything to save that program and I know that Im not alone. Adobe could market it the product for geeky types or sel it if they wanted to. I dont care to have it compete with Adobe and the Freehand is not a serious "threat" to Illustrator, especially because there are only a couple thousand highly skilled designers that know how to take advantage of its special capabilities ...it may not be a product for the masses that just need to make simple ads or flyers. There are numerous features that Illustrator still does not have (though Adobe has incorporated some of them in InDesign, which is a great product). There is no way to describe the "feel" of the programs and how they select and manipulate objects and text...it's a personal preference. I use both programs for different purposes and I need Freehand available to do my work. Although I dont use certain products, I support designers personal choices, as long as they can create properly prepped for print/web graphics, even if they use Canvas, Corel Draw, Mac Paint or whatever.

Show More Comments

Login Here

toggle

Network Headlines

02/16	Safari 5.2, Xcode 4.4 seeds reach developers...
02/16	Mountain Lion updates to be funneled...
02/16	Apple shifts schedules for OS X updates...
02/16	Cook sees merging of notebooks, tablets...
02/16	Apple claims backing for rights to...

Show All

02/16	Cook sees merging of notebooks, tablets...
02/16	Apple claims backing for rights to...
02/16	Intel may push Ivy Bridge back to June...
02/16	Ex-Olympus President, other execs,...
02/15	Sony completes Ericsson stake buyout...

Show All

02/16	Cook sees merging of notebooks, tablets...
02/15	Apple upgrades iBookstore with screenshots...
02/15	Congress asks Apple to answer questions...
02/14	Apple attempting to disrupt Siri hacks...
02/14	Readability iOS app delayed, Android...

Show All

02/16	Garmin nuvi 4.3-inch Portable GPS Navigator...
02/15	Monster iCarPlay Wireless FM Transmitter...
02/14	Refurb. 16GB iPhone 4, now only $259...
02/13	Refurb. Flip UltraHD Pocket Digital...
02/10	$380 off refurbished 2.8GHz Mac Pro...

Show All

toggle

Adobe abandons Freehand, pushes Illustrator

updated 10:00 am EDT, Thu May 17, 2007

Adobe abandons Freehand

Related Articles

Recent Articles

Hmm...

Freehand, R.I.P.

another monopoly win

I was afraid of that�

Already was dead...

This is a shame...

RE: this is a shame�

Disagree somewhat

major lawsuit pending

ces't la vie

I wish someone with...

big gready Adobe

for better of worse

Business

Sic transit gloria mundi

xara

New product

Freehand was buggy...

oh well,

Freehand was buggy... but

Killustrator

three apps in one merger

CorelDraw for Mac...

I began a long time ago

I'll be using Freehand

InDesign sucks 4 xslt

Sell It

I've been trying to...

@ chris p

Prefer Macromedia

grid bug

Save Freehand for maps!

Login Here

Register for our weekly email newsletter:

Connect tools:

Subscribe

to our RSS

Follow us

on Twitter

10 Most Read

10 Most Discussed

MacNN Marketplace