Illustration Annual
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Back Issues
Crit: Freehand Anonymous
Michael Johnson
My name is Michael Johnson... and I use Freehand
I discovered recently that this (allegedly) high-tech industry of ours is populated by a whole tranche of designers who are quietly hanging on to an old, obsolete piece of drawing software.
They know they shouldn’t, they get ridiculed for it, but they can’t help it. A piece of software that has been ever-present for decades has proved a tough habit to crack. Like the beginning of an aa meeting where people stand and admit that they’re hardened drinkers, it’s time to stand up and say that “my name is Michael and yes, I do still use Freehand”.
At this point readers will be experiencing mixed emotions – some will be thinking ‘what an old saddo’. Younger ones will be asking ‘what’s Freehand?’. But, especially in the UK, it seems that a lot of people will be quietly nodding their heads.
Little things started to give it away. I asked Michael C Place for some text from a D&AD project recently and his answer was in the affirmative “as long as I didn’t mind getting it in Freehand”. We discovered recently that Dixon Baxi were still advocates. Some quiet digging revealed a vast array of design studios still using it: Neville Brody, Why Not Associates, Spin, to name a few. The Designers Republic were committed fans and we know there are users at Barnbrook Design, maybe even at North too.
Mr Place declined to contribute to this piece, not wanting to get involved in a discussion about a piece of software, and he has a point. But it seems the choice to use, and continue to use this programme is more than just geekery. If Quark users have to migrate to InDesign, at least they’re moving to something on a par, and in some cases better. Just ten minutes with Keynote persuades most people to happily drop Powerpoint like a stone, such is the gulf in quality. But Freehand users are coping with a transition to something they see as a step sideways, often backwards.
It was one of the great, original debates of the graphic design business – ‘which programme do you use to draw?’ Battle lines were drawn early between the intuitive, easy-to-learn Aldus Freehand and Adobe’s more technical Illustrator. Malcolm Garrett remembers it well. “There was a sense that if you required a particular kind of precision then Illustrator was the way to go, in the same way that XPress won out over PageMaker. The clue is in the ordinariness of the names, Freehand and PageMaker, they just don’t say ‘professional’.
I remember Erik Spiekermann once saying he disliked Freehand, because it was too, er, ‘freehand’.” He thinks that “designers who felt they were more ‘expressive’ liked the basic feel of Freehand, which allowed them to create in a welcoming environment, more akin to art studio than drawing office. For some reason Illustrator gave the impression that it was more technical and thus less expressive somehow.”
Garrett feels the differences are minimal but hardened users jump straight to its defence. “It’s intuitive and fast,” says Aporva Baxi from Dixon Baxi, still determinedly delivering artwork to printers in Freehand, despite the protests. “We just feel at home and can work very fast using it, allowing us to concentrate on the creative. The fact that you can drag any number of pages around, create a full book, guidelines or presentation whilst still being able to design freely is liberating.”
For Spin’s Tony Brook it was love at first sight. “I went from a complete computer virgin, to a happy clapping convert in a matter of hours. I have met so many passionate advocates of Freehand, it is like a badge of honour, whereas your common or garden Illustrator disciple just mumbles and calls me old, which may be true, but if that’s the best they can do....” Why Not Associates’ Andy Altmann reveals that it “was great for designing all the typographic layouts for the environmental projects we have collaborated on with artist Gordon Young. The typographic trees in Crawley [see p22], the entire 320m of the typographic pavement in Morecambe – it would have been really painful to have done it in anything else.” Amazingly, Altmann also admits that all the artwork for the seminal book Typography Now was done as 200 individual pages in the programme.
Nearly all of its adherents know the writing has been on the wall ever since Adobe acquired Macromedia in 2005, getting their hands on the crown jewel, Flash. The 2007 announcement that Freehand wouldn’t be updated came as no surprise, and Adobe’s position on this is clear: “Adobe has no plans to initiate development to add new features. While we recognise it has a loyal customer base, we encourage users to migrate to the new Adobe Illustrator....” To Adobe, bouncing a bunch of ‘has-beens’ into switching makes logical sense, and without any apparent fan-base in the States (a US source could only think of one designer they knew still using it) they faced no significant backlash there.
But its impending demise will feel like amputation to some. “For me it basically feels like an additional limb used purely for design, a third arm that understands and knows what I want,” says Nick Hard in Neville Brody’s Research Studios. Baxi admits they “quietly dread the day we have to install a system update to osx that suddenly conflicts with it”. Tony Brook reveals that “Adobe has finally beaten me into submission. This Christmas I did a day’s course on Illustrator. I still don’t get it.”
For this writer, once a Freehand beta-tester, it’s been ever-present on a 20-year journey. But now my copy won’t let me print out anything containing fonts (bit of a drawback), and regularly needs re-booting/re-installing (not ideal). Garrett criticises this as an inherent inability to embrace change, a sort of ‘I know what I like, and I like what I know’ culture.
He’s right of course, and the news that The Designers Republic has folded should perhaps be the death-knell for their favourite piece of software too. Its central place in British graphic design for 20 years is coming to an end.
At least there’s a glimmer of hope. It seems that Adobe has (finally) acknowledged that Illustrator could do with some of Freehand’s best bits (like multiple, different-sized pages in a document, and even simple old ‘paste-inside’). Perhaps they’ll send me a copy of cs4 and I’ll be a (slightly late) beta-tester? But in the meantime, I have a logo to do by this afternoon,
I think I’ll just knock out a few quick ideas in a programme I know well....
Michael Johnson is design director of johnsonbanks and editor of the johnson-banks Thought for the week blog
133 Comments
I, too, use Freehand, and have since 1988! That is, until last week when a client said "Why don't you upgrade your Acrobat Reader?". I did, and that was the END of being able to export my FH files as PDFs or TIFFs or anything else for sending drawings to clients. Yes, I have FH MX and Adobe Illustrator on another machine, and hate, hate, HATE those. I can't even tell you how many FH programs I've PURCHASED, beginning with Aldus Freehand in 1988. I bought nearly all the upgrades over the years. It does seem as though every time I upgraded, there were changes that I disliked (for instance, instead of a quick copy from one document and pasting into another, there are now at least 4 extra clicks involved). I've just downloaded 10.0.1 update and that didn't fix the problem.
2009-05-22 23:50:20
I would like to mention that 20 yrs ago I excitedly unpacked my first mac, assorted fonts and software (£12k), and within a couple of hours, using Freehand, I had produced my first paying job. Since that day I must have looked at the Freehand manual maybe a handful of times. Everything is so intuiative the manual is hardly needed. Indeed it took years before you could actually see what you were designing in illustrator everything being in outline mode!!!!
For me, the difference between Illustrator and Freehand is Freehand could one way or another do everything required of it, illustrator couldn't.
If illustrator does introduce paste inside and multiple pages then maybe I will start to migrate to it more often, until then I will use it only as a bridging programme.
2009-05-27 14:58:10
There are many Freehand lovers in the U.S.!
2009-06-04 05:14:32
I struggle with Illustrator. Can't get anything done with it! Så I cheet and use my old FreeHand all the time.
2009-06-05 13:53:01
I thought I was completely alone. I'm so happy. (Sniff!)
Freehand rules.
2009-06-08 22:03:59
I'm from Turkey and I love too much freehand as a design software...
2009-06-09 08:30:41
We're diehard FH8 fans here. Began with Aldus FreeHand 1.1 about 19 yars ago. Got almost every upgrade and loved them all until MX. We have MX but we hate the Illustrator-like pallets, and we still love FH8. I don't care if Adobe doesn't want to develop FreeHand further - it's almost perfect anyway, and we're not looking for new developments! The only thing I want from them is to make it work under the current operating systems, and update the import filters so we can open files we receive.
We're being crippled by needing OS9 to run FH8, and when we switch to MX under OSX we have major font issues, import issues, export issues, and system crashes. Not good for a production environment.
We have Illustrator CS2 on another machine and one of our younger staff is comfortable with that, but the rest of us are almost in mourning over the the possibility of leaving our beloved FH8 behind. Especially with 19 years of artwork that needs to be accessed.
Maybe with CS4 allowing multiple pages we might grudgingly look in that direction. But if we have to make our move from FreeHand, it will be kicking and screaming all the way!
And to those who think it's a resistance to change - think again. We looked forward to each new version of FreeHand for years (until MX) and were more than willing to learn how to use the new features which were always well thought out and productive. It's not about not wanting to try something new. We've seen how Illustrator does the things that Freehand does and we like the way FreeHand does it better. It's called being efficient and productive.
I'm thoroughly disgusted by Adobe's stance on this.
2009-06-12 16:16:38
I have eighteen years of archived projects in Freehand, and as a brand identity designer, I'm going gray(er) at the prospect of not being able to continue using my beloved Freehand and positively mortified to think that I will not be able to use my files for reprints/ revisions. C'mon you gods of software development, don't you know how hard it is already to be profitable in this business without this kind of spanner in the works?
Oh my,
James
2009-06-26 19:14:52
Googling 'Anyone still use Freehand?' led me to this site. Oh what a relief I feel! I agree so much with all who have commented. Why fix something that isn't broken? I feel an awkwardness about InDesign when tweeking text after converting to outlines. How do you draw a star in InDesign? Freehand is so dexterous! I will not, cannot let it go. Can we form a lobby/support group to protect this valued species? But above all, I am so glad I am not alone! I am still able to use Freehand MX with OS X 10.4.5 and write PDF files in Acrobat 7.
2009-06-29 08:14:07
It is great to hear that so many people still support the use of Freehand.
I am also resisting the move to Illustrator, although I originally trained in that programme (UK) worked in it for most of my career (AUS), and only moved to Freehand when I came to live in South Africa 5 years ago. I now prefer Freehand over Illustrator anyday. Adobe will have to fix so many things before Illustrator will have the same agility that Freehand has. Especially for us all round designers who have the need of a programme that can multi-task.
freda
brandnewworld
2009-06-30 16:19:29
Resist, resist, resist.... someone will surely resurrect it.... Quark - its just wrong!
2009-06-30 17:50:17
I used Freehand for the first 10 years of my career. Its increasing instability led me to begrudgingly switch to Adobe's Ugly Child Of The CS Family - why are it's line drawing and editing tools so awful? Photoshop's path tool is simplicity itself by comparison.
Reading this reminded me what it was like to work with an application that was so easy to use, intuitive and which allowed me to work how I wanted rather than making me work its (very odd) way. I really miss that fluidity, and keep an old copy of FH10 going for times when Illustrator just can't do the job (click and drag perspective path transformations anyone?).
I've been working with Illustrator for around 5 years and still mostly hate it - everything is a struggle. Click... Click... Just nudge that point... Oh... Not like that... Click... Not the whole path... That point... Click... Click... Oh it's started a new path... etc... and don't even get me started on 'clipping masks'... Bah!
Mike
another vision
2009-07-01 12:14:26
Still using it everyday, happy to see I'm not alone.
"I don't use Illustrator because it usually has to go make a cup of tea and have smoke before it decides to turn up to work. Looking at the stats it's no wonder. It sits on my desktop hogging almost 800MB of office/desktop space. If my Mac were an office block, Illustrator would take up an entire floor and have a dedicated elevator to Photoshop and InDesign on the floors above."
See full article here:
http://www.10on12.com/index.php/notebook/freehand_v_illustrator/
2009-07-06 16:57:21
I, too, still use Freehand (I don't mind MX at all; I've been using it since it came out). I even purchased the AI-CS3 a couple of hears ago, thinking that soon my FH program won't be compatible with my vendors for much longer, but it still works just fine. I can't understand why someone doesn't just come out with a new upgrade to Freehand. Is it impossible/illagal to recreate the program? There are so many loyal folowers that as long as it still did everything it does now -- but better and with better export and import features -- they would make a mint! (that is the one place where FH is lacking; I have a hard time opening PDFs in it and memory problems when I import or export large files, even though my computer is huge). My biggest complaint with Illustrator (I do open PDFs in there, so it hasn't been a complete waste of money -- then I copy the art and paste it into Freehand) is that the vectors are so intertwined. I have to "ungroup" and "release mask" a bunch of times before I can get that one shape I need. A shaded box, which in Freehand is one item, suddenly becomes thousands of items in Illustrator. Each gradient becoming its own vector image. And what is with this "no multiple pages" junk??? I can set up a customer's entire stationery order within one freehand file -- several different page sizes, all where I can see them on the pasteboard. I love it! I am so angry with Adobe that they are being so ridiculous about Freehand. It's a superior program and yet much more simple. I can create complex posters and simple logos. I can't understand why they just don't upgrade and sell both FH and AI. Or sell Freehand to some techie capable of upgrading it and getting it going again. I would buy it!!
2009-07-10 22:45:00
Freehand is still the most intuitive and the fastest vector editing software of all times..and it let's you experiment easily way more than Adobe Illustrator.
2009-07-13 02:57:54
Hello, Michael:
I'm very pleased to find this thread. Thanks for keeping the flame burning.
My name is Andy Markley... and I use FreeHand. I began using FreeHand on a Mac with its initial release in the late 1980s. I currently use FreeHand MX 11.0.2 (Build 92) on an Intel Mac running OSX 10.5.7.
Adobe is determined to kill FreeHand... a sad, money-grubbing, corporate mistake. FreeHand is easily a better vector art program. It runs circles around Adobe Illustrator... always did, always will.
Art, like morality and corporate profit, consists of drawing the line somewhere.
2009-07-14 01:20:14
I have to use Illustrator due to upgrades, but I have sorely missed Freehand. It was definitely more intuitive, and had features that are still lacking in Illustrator, like Freehand 3D rotate – i remember what it did, better than what it was called :)
I'd love for Adobe to include those features and streamline the interface. I'd also like for Illustrator to handle pictures and multiple layers without me having to take a nap, jog around the block and wait some more.
2009-07-15 08:57:27
I´m from Mexico, and my name is Hernánl and yes, I do still use Freehand, Is very easy to work in this software, tools like paste inside, aligne this objects, collect for uotput is to convenient, copy pages in the same file, text boxes, it's to easy and fast trace vectors, you can do small magazines, anyway. I think than the important thing is what is happening in your brain, i mean, your ideas, what you are thinking. So Freehand let you desing very fast and very easy. I hope a new version could appera early. (aha!) (My english is to bad, sorry!)
2009-07-16 17:22:24
I've been trying to work in Illustrator for years, but I always go back to Freehand to get the real work done. With so many Freehand fans out there, why doesn't someone buy the rights from Adobe? If they were to market the software again, I'd buy it!
2009-07-18 15:55:43
Have used illustrator since v3.2, after inking on a drawing board, then had to use Freehand but got to like it. MAINLY the way the bezier pen is used.
I have gone back to illustrator but too many options, not user friendly, no multipage option (plug-in), no paste inside. Freehand has got a few bugs but worksarounds are easy.
Drawing beziers is much better with Freehand.
For example, if I draw a line then a point and don't like the point I press delete and continue drawing. If I do that in illustrator, I have to click on the last point again.
Also, when pasting vectors from illustrator to flash 10 years ago, the shades were not correct. Yet my older version of freehand worked fine.
2009-07-22 05:25:21
I have a Mac running OS 10.5, Photoshop CS and Freehand 10. As any computer-based graphic artist knows, it's not so much what version of the software you have, it's what you can do with it, artistically, that matters most. I'm doing the same caliber work as many others, and yet I do not use the latest versions of my software.
Which brings me to Freehand. I, too, still have my Aldus Freehand version 1 disks, from back in my Mac Plus years. I have always preferred Freehand, largely because of the text capabilities it had, years ahead of Illustrator. Years ago it'd become my tool of choice, for brochures, ads, you name it. If I'm working on a document over four pages I will use InDesign, but for anything under, it's FH.
I was very disappointed when Adobe acquired it and shut it down, and I continue to resist the pressure to switch to Illustrator. I know that I'll eventually have to cave, but for now I will continue to use FH.
2009-07-22 18:41:17
Yes... I read these comments and fully agree... by force of habit and long-term use, I also am a die-hard Freehand user and thus find Illustrator a continues pain in the ass... although I have to admit that Illustrator does have many, many brilliant and spectacularly useful aspects. But ultimately Illustrator is lacking the intuitive aspects of Freehand.
In the mean time, Freehand has sadly become a very outdated and poorly piece of neglected software comparatively. And yet I too find my self working initially in old Freehand only to finally paste in to Illustrator in order to get the benefits of both.
If only Adobe would combine the intuitive and oh-so-useful aspects of Freehand (CS4 perhaps?) to create a hybrid of the two, I'm sure the (design) world would awake to a brighter day each morning... well, at least I would!
Although... reading my own comments back just now, perhaps we should just grow up, move with the times and un-learn old tricks to make room for new... Yeah, right!
I WANT MY FREEHAND BACK!!!!! (but with the good bits of Illustrator for sure!)
2009-07-28 13:20:20
It is still simple: Freehand for designers. Illustrator for technical work. Sadly Adobe still doesn't get it. Until they do, I will keep Freehand alive somehow and get work done. Now if I could just get all the new fonts to work with it!
Indesign seems to be pretty good stuff. Maybe Adobe could just add Freehand's illustrative tools and path tools to Indesign, then we'd quite trying to use illustrator for design. Wow, wouldn't that be sweet!?
2009-08-12 15:20:46
According to this and other forums, almost everyone who doesn't like Illustrator started out on Freehand and couldn't adjust. That's what they are used to. I started with Illustrator 88 and only tried Freehand recently. I found it far more difficult to use than Illustrator. So perhaps it's just what you already know. Illustrator CS4 seems to have fixed everything else Freehanders liked.
2009-08-20 19:47:54
I was asked by students what I use as a drawing programme now that Freehand was put out to greener pastures and I said, When I was forced to migrated to Illustrator, I was baffled at the amount of pen tools I had to switch to do a drawing besides 2 selection tools. Six in total! I immediately opened FontLab where I had only two, one pen and one selection tool to the same work with! With ultra high pression because it work in PostScript lines and gives me oblique guides and tools you can only dream of in Vector art programmes. Then copy and paste into Illustrator to complete the job to save a lot of frustration.
I also miss the ease of adding multiple pages, paste inside and join.
Jan Erasmus
2009-08-27 11:07:19
I'm an illustrator & I still use FreeHand. I'm running FreeHand 11.02 on an Intel Mac with OS10.5.7, never have any problems with compatibility, never crashes. I also have CS 3 but still can't get things done as quickly or as accurately in Illustrator as I can in FreeHand, so I use both. FreeHand to create in & any effects/gradients etc are done later in Illustrator, seems to keep my clients happy & have never had printing issues. I have just read that FreeHand won't work in OS10.6 Snow Leopard update! Is this the beginning of the end?
2009-08-28 11:38:18
FH's able to work on Snow Leopard. Providing you choose to install Rosetta as well....
2009-08-29 13:26:41
I'm a photographer in the US who designs, and I have used Freehand since the Aldus days. I still find it amazing that Adobe couldn't find a place to put freehand ( this is the third time they've owned the program...the previous two times they dumped it off only to see it continue as a competitor). What truly seems amazing is that most of us would be happy if they just left it alone...we'd pay for updates that merely allowed it to function well with the OS and with photoshop (hard to imaging the crashing of PS cs3 by freehand eps files was an accident on adobe's part -- if we all weren't so old and feeble...I think there's a class action in that one). They still haven't caught Illustrator up to where freehand was when it was stranded 5 years ago, so they still have a viable product with an installed base of customers willing to pay for it, they don't even need to print a box...just make it a download and charge my card.....please.
It's just bad business. But I guess bad business is good business when you have a monopoly.
On the snow leopard thing, Mick....there seems to be some anecdotal evidence that freehand will work, but it take some jiggering to get it there.
http://forums.adobe.com/message/2034293;jsessionid=1F39A7E777989269B033124D4DF50F0E.node0
2009-08-29 18:24:56
I am also a long time Freehand user. My dirty little secret is that I use it for architectural drawings. It works like a triangle and "T" square and is amazingly accurate. i am surprised when I hear people talking about Illustrator being for technical drawing- you can't draw to scale in it! In freehand you can draw to scale so accurately that you can have a scale drawing printed at life size and it is dead on. Illustrator lacks that so I can't use it.
2009-08-29 22:43:26
I could say a lot more about Freehand being good, and easy to use (I have run teams of folks and we had to train them up... FH-MX was a snap to get even non-designers trained on).
But here's one big fact: Just last week I published an update of my mobile design templates. We're starting to switch to InDesign, but this was still drawn in FH-MX. So I posted it as a PDF, and the Freehand files. Hundreds of downloads... fully a quarter in Freehand. There IS a solid following still, hiding from the roving gangs of Illustrator fanbois.
(If anyone wants to see the file, it's at this post: http://www.littlespringsdesign.com/blog/blog/2009/08/24/more-templates-for-everyone/)
2009-09-01 20:55:48
CAN SOME SOFTWARE COMPANY PLEEEAASE BUY FREEHAND FROM ADOBE AND KEEP IT UP WORKING?
It doesn't need to be updated or advanced or changed or anything. It just needs to continue to be the amazing application it has been since the 1980's. Adobe apparently thinks it is worthless, so they should be pleased to get money for something they're not using. Illustrator and InDesign add extra steps to everything and are STILL not nearly as intuitive or easy to use as the 2004 version of FreeHand I'm using. Those apps just do not cut it.
I am a design professional and I use FreeHand every single day. Of course, for print jobs I have to export everything to Illustrator then open and check it there so the printer can use the files. So annoying. Just update it already!
2009-09-02 20:04:22
My name is Chris Vane.. and I use Freehand as well
2009-09-03 09:06:06
I also use Freehand since 3.1! I love Freehand!
I work with an Imac with Freehand Mx also have CS3 that i only use to open jobs.
Illustrator as a lot of filters that a lot off postcript machines can't print correctly. What was Adobe thinking?!! That people change expensive riping machines???
I work in a Flexo (overprints, trappings, etc) environment and designers are using lots off illustrator filters that make my life a living hell because i can't print them and i can't export them to Freehand.
There are a number off sites and one of them is trying to make a petition (http://www.freefreehand.org/), clients of Freehand should be more united.
2009-09-04 10:56:00
I have been using Freehand since 3.1. And I am still using it. Mostly FH10 on Tiger, but sometimes MX.
I have tried Illustrator so many many times, but I still don't get it. It is slow, akward, clumsy and frustrating. Freehand is so much better and much much faster.
One of the funny things about Freehand is, that I continue to find new ways to things - and to survive in this Adobe CS environment. The other day I discovered thar I could export an entire website made in Freehand as PSD-files including all layers including layers for text. How great is that???
And I have discovered a thousand ways to convert Ill. CS4, Ill. CS3, Indesign, PDf, Coreldraw etc. to Freehand MX.
Cause Freehand is just and simple the best graphic program. PERIOD.
Keep the program alive, and @Adobe: Wake up. Please.
Mikael, Denmark
2009-09-04 13:40:28
I have used Freehand since version 2. Then, Illustrator 88 only worked in outline mode, in Freehand you could work in preview mode. No contest. I now continue to use MX on OS X 10.5. It just works for me. I can't beleive Adobe were not forced to sell it when they purchased Macromedia. Please lord of all things graphic, allow Freehand to keep working with Snow Leopard and beyond.
Simon
2009-09-04 14:07:34
I'm hanging on too - but with the new macs and operating software it's getting beyond F L A K E Y. The end is nigh I'm afraid.
Getting to grips with Illustrator isn't easy due to time constraints.
All very annoying.
2009-09-04 15:34:19
Hello FreeHand Community,
It is great to see that there is still a love and passion for FreeHand! I too still would rather launch my old version of FreeHand before I launch Illustrator and sad to see it being neglected for all of these years.
I would love to see FreeHand go open source and see what would happen with features and most importantly forward compatibility with future OS updates. Glad to have dodged, with some effort, the Snow Leopard incompatibility.
Warm Regards,
John J Nosal
Former Sr. Support Engineer for FreeHand
2009-09-04 17:50:39
Freehand users since version 3, made lots of straatmaps (still do) in Freehand. Recently tried to convert a map to CS3/4........bummer to see I have to create my map almost from scratch and all the functions I'm missing too!
Please let Freehand become open source!!
2009-09-04 18:06:58
Okay. Here we are in the final stretch of 2009. This workstation runs Illy CS4 and the whole CS4 pile. But the money is made when running fast in FreeHand 11.02
Illustrator is much better now, but still asks for too many sub-selectors and jumping around for colors. It is also so off putting to be asked repeatedly how you wish to save the file, and why can't it remember to do EVERYTHING in 300 dpi CMYK only? FreeHand simply remembers how I like to work. So it goes that Freehand is the best tool in the box...period. Like many of you good people my use of FH goes back to version 5. Don't get me wrong, I keep up to date on everything for the studio with software upgrades yearly to Dreamweaver, Fireworks, InDesign, Photoshop and Flash. But more than anything else, it would be grand to finally upgrade the trusty steed named FreeHand. Cheers, Jeffery
2009-09-06 06:08:12
Hello FreeHand Friends.
I am the initiator behind FREEFREEHAND, together with Jabez Palmer from Seattle, we want to start the biggest FreeHand community ever, to give FreeHand Users a voice Adobe can not ignore.
Help us. Join http://www.freefreehand.org
Regards,
Thü
2009-09-06 08:33:20
Hi freehand fellows!
this is Teo from Italy, I still use Freehand too and I'm very very happy to find so many people like me.
two words over all: simple and fast.
no frills.
Love, Teo
2009-09-08 09:27:00
I am a graphics professional with 25 years experience and use Freehand often over Illustrator.
Freehand simply does more, better, faster.
Freehand is as intuative as the Mac OS while Illustrator is as large a mess as Windows.
2009-09-08 11:50:40
I remain an unashamed user of Freehand. I can use Illustrator, but I find even the latest CS4 interface isn't as good. Freehand remains a much easier program to use and always had better features, often removing the need for a program such as InDesign. I've designed and printed 98-page magazines in Freehand, I wouldn't even attempt anything multipage in Illustrator without using InDesign alongside it: but why take two bottles into the shower?
The only problem I'm now getting with old versions of Freehand is they don't export gradients, overprints and greyscale objects to PDF properly. But there are ways around that and I'm used to dealing with minor issues so they don't slow me down at all.
I'd be amazed if Adobe released the code for Freehand, but it's nice to see there is still a demand for the program.
2009-09-08 14:35:21
I use Illustrator now out of necessity, but it routinely makes me want to put my fist through a wall. Good to see there're other FH diehards out there.
2009-09-08 15:24:30
Freehand MX is a industry standard and will always be that.
If Adobe is not brave enough to release the code they should develop it themselves and let us the users decide. Is that not how is should work in a free market system.
Come Adobe to the right thing, show the users that you really have their needs in mind.
Viva! Freehand ! Viva! from a South-African user
2009-09-08 15:55:55
[The clue is in the ordinariness of the names, Freehand and PageMaker, they just don’t say ‘professional’.]
Ahh... yes... "Illustrator"... Such a word to mean pure technicism, professionality, and so...
C'mon...!!!
Adobe, who you think you're dealing with?
As what for me respects, I wont be upgrading OSX anymore in my daily machine. It works like a rocket since it came right out the box... I dont mind on nything else than getting the job done fine...
So, here's a point on Apple... they could negotiate whit Adobe, the same way they did with Premiere...
'nuff said...
2009-09-08 16:05:58
I always get to a point when this discussion arrives...
How many of people using Freehand have purchased it?
100%?
50%?
15%?
Just a thought... but probably it has some to do on the Adobe's decision to discontinue FHMX.
It is true (or -at least- it should) that most of renamed studios own a paid license, but...
Let me at least have my point of doubt...
Regards.
2009-09-08 16:25:45
i hope that if freehand be freed from adobe that it will remain a free owner program. If you have ever used freehand and had to migrate to illustrator... its total hell. Drawing is not as fun as using freehand. Finally in CS4 they support multiple pages, but what an ordeal to set up.... nothing like illustrator. I have always thought that Softpress makers of Freeway a mac web design program try to buy freehand and that would compliment there offerings since Freeway works similar. One can only wish.
2009-09-08 16:39:13
I guess one of the reasons why I use a vector program less and less and making do with Photoshop is because Illustrator seems clunky compared to Freehand. I hate the two or even more selection tools in Illustrator where Freehand had just one. Loved that elegance. WTF? Adobe should indeed free up Freehand. When will it do this?
I am still waiting for the OSX version of Stryder's TypeStyler. Release Typestyler too. *S*
2009-09-08 17:14:01
I'm a longtime Illustrator user myself--starting with v. 1 just about this time in 1987, when the product shipped on two 400K floppies--and it's been at the core of my livelihood ever since. I've used every iteration since then with the exception of the first two "Creative Suites," which had started to outrun the capabilities of a 1999 B&W G3-based system. After 22 years of daily use I'm comfortable with the software, and am probably not even aware of of those elements that strike longtime Freehand users as outrageous quirks and intolerable limitations. I also count myself fortunate to have come in, so to speak, at the beginning of the movie: I'd hate to imagine trying to master Illustrator CS4 from scratch today, particularly since the loathsome marketers and bean-counters who run Adobe today no longer see fit to include printed documentation with their products.
I knew designers back in the day who were mad for FreeHand. I never used it myself, but I watched it in action over a few shoulders, and recall being impressed with some of its capabilities, particularly in text handling (you don't wan't to know what was involved in simulating text on a path in the early versions of AI, and you flat-out wouldn't believe me if I told you what was involved for simple text entry in Illustrator 1). Having recently been obliged to began the transition from GoLive, which I've been using since before Adobe devoured it, to Dreamweaver, I think I can understand your pain, if not the acrimony (Illuscraptor? C'mon. Freehand may be the right tool for you, but that doesn't mean Illustrator is wrong for its partisans).
You know, FreeHand dodged Adobe's bullet back in 1994 when Aldus was eaten up. Under terms of Aldus' licensing agreement, publishing rights for Freehand reverted to Altsys, the original developer. Altsys was then acquired outight by Macromedia the following year and a decade later…you know the rest.
Anyway, although I'm comfortable with AI, I would not wish on any designer a forced march from his accustomed bread-and-butter creative environment, and send best wishes for the success of the "Free FreeHand" movement. I think you might have a better chance were Adobe still being run by its founders, who were engineers and gentlemen, and not the aforementioned marketing vermin who'll provide printed documentation for the "Creative Suite" only upon tender of an additional $250-$500 per package, depending on configuration.
John Gruber nailed these guys four years ago.
2009-09-08 18:20:43
In Dominican Republic freehand still rules. The illustrator way It's to dificult.
I wish the comback of freehand, if only with less bugs.
2009-09-08 21:53:03
Freehand user's collective voices were heard loud and clear as far as Macromedia was concerned, and that was too few upgrades to justify further development. PERIOD.
If the program was such a hit AND you were all willing to upgrade, then Illustrator would have been killed instead. MONEY TALKS, BS WALKS.
To the others saying Adobe should give away the code or allow others to develop it, there are two problems;
1. Adobe does not own Freehand outright. In any complex and mature application, there are many elements or libraries (sometimes several thousand) that are licensed from third parties. Simply removing these would cripple the complete application.
2. Adobe would be encouraging (read conflict of interest) the development of a competing application. I highly doubt the Adobe board of directors would unanimously pass this proposition.
Go ahead and gather together as a group to make a change but be realistic; Adobe already has a challenge trying to find enough customers will to buy applications other than Photoshop and Acrobat, so thinking that they would invest millions of dollars and years of continued development to keep Freehand going is a pipe dream for sure. So fill that pipe with crack and inhale deeply 'cause Freehand is as dead as this thread!
2009-09-09 00:31:45
Freehand really gives you the flow to experiment, it does everything except exporting into the adobe world... CS4 is making it easier to migrate but still i feel crippled in illustrator... adobe is evil!
Want i want is a opensource freehand!!!
or clone build upon freehand 8 with all needed updates in terms of funktionality...
2009-09-09 16:07:10
Adobe Illustrator CS4 is still years-light behind FreeHand. Ever tried to control the overprinting properties of an object? Or use Object Styles? It is a nightmare, with an insulting user interface. And if you finish with a document linking to a dozen or more hi-res photos, you're stuck with exporting to PDF. No packaging to a service provider.
In my book, that's insanity.
2009-09-09 18:12:43
I use Freehand everyday for almost 20 years. I had to buy Illustrator to share layered Illustrator files with another designer, but I friggin hate it.
It still runs even on Snow Leopard, but barely.
Damn you Adobe!
steveoh
2009-09-09 23:38:11
I don't care what anyone says Illustrator is a memory hogging dumb piece of CRAP ! and massively over priced to boot...
I create mostly architectural roughs and visuals in something that gets the job done Today Not next week... ...FREEHAND...
I refuse to give 1 cent more to ADOBE. unless they relinquish Freehand ...And perhaps admit the truth.. that is was the embarrassment that Freehand being So much Better than illustrator caused them over the years that led to them slowly and maliciously asphyxiate it...
Also for the Americans amongst us, What rhymes with: RealityChecker ?
P _ _ _ _ r
2009-09-09 23:49:02
I started my Maclife using PageMaker and Illustrator, back in 1985. In 1990 I discovered an unopened Freehand program at work (there was an overactive purchasing department) and during a quiet afternoon unwrapped it and tried the tutorial. I didn't really get it, so I went through it again. BOING!! Lightbulbs flashed! Freehand could do on its own what I had needed both of the others to do together. Illustrator 88 was consigned to the shelf. PageMaker languished unused in the applications folder. I never went back, and when I started my own studio in 1996, I purchased my very own Freehand and upgraded excitedly every time, up to 11.0.2. I use only Freehand and Photoshop, to this day. I can't go back to Illustrator now. I won't.
And as for RealityChecker's comments (above), who says we didn't want upgrades???
How can it be a conflict of interest for Adobe to continue Freehand AND Illustrator? Surely it's better to have 2 products instead of 1? And it doesn't require millions of dollars to be developed - it's already BEEN developed.
2009-09-10 05:07:10
I don`t read all the comments before.
Freehand was and is the best vektor-draw and illustration program for me.
It is clearly and not so overload as Illustrator. Nevertheless it owns the full range of functions.
Really, it would be great - Freehand as opensource. I hope it`s possible!!!
Arthur
Germany
2009-09-10 10:34:36
My name is Cecilia, and I'm a FH10 fan!!! Luv it luv it! I use it everyday and I've never complained about it.
I've just joined FREEFREEHAND.ORG..... We are not alone!
2009-09-10 20:30:58
The (almost) loss of Freehand is indeed lamented in the US. I, for instance, have been a devoted Freehand user since the late 80's. There are so many reasons to recommend Freehand, but my favorite is that in Freehand, you could lay out almost any project in just one file.
Here's something to ponder. I work at a large university and we regularly have interns from the graphic design program. All the kids are able to buy Adobe products (through a campus license) for virtually nothing. They are all Adobe converts consequently. (Sucks for them since we also use Quark - but that's another story.) I can't remember the last time a new intern listed Illustrator as one of the programs they "know" best. The reason is obvious - Illustrator is a marginal program at best. Time was you could practically survive as a designer using Freehand alone. I guess I'll just have to pine away for the good ole days...
2009-09-10 22:43:01
There is no justifiable reason for Freehand to be dumped as a legitimate tool of the trade. Its redundancy was obviously a forced one. The possible reasons would be that Adobe has decided to concentrate application developments that lean more toward what are seen as "cutting-edge" (and often fleeting) design trends as opposed to sustaining software utilities with long-term and practical applications in the mainstay areas of print and publication.
I've road-tested Illustrator 4 in the hope that Adobe would have seen the light and integrated the key features of Freehand that AI has repeatedly lacked. I was disappointed.
I see no logical reason NOT to improve Illustrator to the point that it emulates Freehand, and yet Adobe seems determined to punish those areas of the design industry that have an absolute dependence on the type of precise and perceptive vector tools that Freehand has always provided.
I have always had Freehand and I have always had the Adobe applications. I love Photoshop, I'm reasonably happy with InDesign (despite its annoying resistance to retro-compatibiliy!), but I rarely use Illustrator, and then only grudgingly. It's clunky - always has been, and it seems it always will be.
Long live Freehand.
2009-09-11 04:42:04
Freehand is a sportscar compare to Illustrators Fancy Decked out bus.
From the first time you try to select something to the last scream of frustration as you bail out, Illustrator sucks.
Why doesn't Adobe release the code of, or sell, Freehand rather than squatting on it?
They're squatting on an entire user base and breeding a lot of bad feeling in the industry they now monopolise.
The bus is in no way ready to replace the sports car.
2009-09-14 02:57:38
Like it or hate it, there are still fans of Freehand nationally and internationally. Some of them (like myself) drank the coolaid and did the whole "Freehand to Illustrator" migration only to find the current Adobe offering lacking in many core features. There are numerous users out there that long for the conveniences of not having to choose a color space when they start working on a file, want one contextual object pane to edit properties of an object, appreciate the elegance of paste inside, multiple pages, as well as many other features. The list could go on and on but this isn't about the features.
Adobe's astroturf campaign of systematically converting the Freehand "heathens" has always smacked of arrogance and lack of customer focused leadership. It's the equivilant to "Your revolution is over, Freehand users. Condolences. The bums lost. My advice is to do what your parents did; get a real vector drawing application, sir. The bums will always lose." My apologies for the blatant Big Lebowski ripoff, but you get my point. Any forced conversion is going to have a backlash. Astroturf is an apt description as it is the antethesis of a true grass roots effort in which people (we as customers), choose what is best for us and aren't being force fed something we feel is inferior. By allowing Freehand to rot on the vine as Adobe has chosen to do, they are succeeding in their business goal of killing off the competition. The problem is that there are people out there who care deeply about their application and just want it to live. As a company, Adobe is losing the battle on the ground if you treat your customers this way. They are alienating the same people they are trying to convert.
I've spoken to some of the creators of Freehand, who have told me personally that Macromedia had stopped development on Freehand before it was sold to Adobe. My response to this is why not release it to the public then? People still enjoy the product. Adobe needs to do itself a favor and generate some good will for crying out loud. After the recent news that they're not supporting CS3 in Snow Leopard and forcing people to upgrade to CS4 to get support, they could use some positive PR. But again, I digress. It isn't about Adobe's status with Freehand users. To us, they've already alienated us by not actively listening to what the community wanted. Sure they talked a good game, put some blogs up like John Nack's etc., but all we heard was a defense of their decisions. Bottom line was, they were going in a direction already and it didn't really matter much what supporters wanted.
The best that Freehand users can hope for at this point is that Adobe release the product and allow a community of open source developers work on it. Chances are, they won't do that though. After all, this is business. We're just passionate users. Even after 5 years of development inactivity, lack of intel support and maintenance updates, the application still has it's place in many a designer's workflow today.
Maybe that is why Adobe covets Freehands users. Unfortunately, Adobe has yet to learn that you can't force someone to love you just because you want them to. And as we all know, if you love someone you must set them free.
Free Freehand. We don't belong where we're not wanted.
2009-09-14 04:00:04
i'm a 20 year long user of freehand. without echoing everything that's been posted above, i just wanted to put in a few personal thoughts on this program. it's not like i haven't tried to use illustrator. i've had every version of illustrator over the years installed on at least one machine in the office, but anytime i tried to use it i just lost my mind and ran screaming back to FH. i pick up apps very easily, so it's not like i'm interface-challenged... it's just that AI SUCKS to use. it's really just horrible. i am overjoyed to know there are so many others out there like me. i always felt like a loser admitting to people that i loved the FH/PageMaker combo when everyone else seemed to use ILL/Quark. I felt vindicated finally when Quark stumbled and PM turned in the vastly superior InDesign. Photoshop also goes from strength to strength. so why can't the adobe people see how purely crap AI is and give us what we want.
bring on an opensource freehand! viva la FH!
2009-09-14 22:36:00
The reason I became a designer is due to the ease of Freehand. Back in 95 when I bought my first Mac, it was already loaded by the original owner and with a quick introduction I began churning out designs. Apparently they were not half bad because the guy who sold me the computer offered my a job with his new design company and we became partners.
My favorite tool by far is the Align tool!!! I love balance and nothing is better. Also resizing an object was simplistic. Grab any of the points, hold shift and... Illustrator sucked at that for most of its existence. What about working with multiple layers. Being able to send an element to the back or one layer down is priceless. Change the view to Keyline and being able to zoom into the most miniscule detail made it friggin awesome. Come on yall, take two objects and either group, intersect, punch, divide, union. And the keystrokes were the bomb too. I made my living of of this beautiful software and produced 36 page magazines, calendars, t-shirt designs and many many other designs that I am still proud of after 14 years of graphic design.
I primarily use a bootleg version of Photoshop CS1 but I happily bought my MX. My entire approach to design in CS1 is based on my experience with FH and when I get stuck and want something to be dead on precise, I load FH and get it done and import it back into CS1. A matter of fact, if I am setting up a 4-up design to be printed by one of my small scale printers, I import a jpeg of my design and create a quick template with custom cut lines.
I tell you what, Apple should consider buying FH to destroy Ai, like their Final Cut did to Premiere. One of you guys has Jobs on speed dial, lets make this happen.
Love all of you loyalist out there. Viva La FH!!!
2009-09-17 05:26:09
i'm a professional Freehand user since 10 years and have several years detailed experience in
Illustrator as well.
i can only say: in no way Illustrator is able to replace Freehand.
why? i only give you some of the countless points:
- multiple artboards don't replace the multiple pages of Freehand, because
the numbers cannot be changed afterwards - a desaster for multiple page projects,
to change them in the PDF.
- the FH import feature is complete crap; almost all (CE/Cyrillic/Greek/Zapf Dingbats) kind of Fonts
will be destroyed after converting them to outlines when importing to Illustrator
(but Adobe claims to keep the layout correct when importing), that's definitely NOT true
- although some claim the opposite, it is fact that it is much easier to 'paste inside' instead using masks;
why is easy to explain.
In FH, you just had to select the object you wanted to paste into and then to paste in - done!
in Illustrator you first have to 1. create a form 2. fill it with a color 3. put it over the object to trim 4. select both, the mask and the object to trim
what a joke! and what if the object you want to trim is only slightly bigger then the mask?
handling will become difficult.
- the drawing tools in freehand are much more intuitive/easy
- illustrator is extremely slow
- illustrator is extremely unstable
- illustrator creates heavy files
- you cannot get embedded pictures/files out of the file
- the texteditor of Illustator is complete crap
- selecting complex Objects is much more difficult than in Freehand, and you cannot click
through the layers
- the clipping masks have a major bug - in many complex layouts, resetting the mask will cause a damage of the complete layout - i have sent several files to adobe, months later they admitted the bugs, but never solved them! the same with the font desaster when importing freehand files !
- you don't have the ability of "soft separation" in texts - another very bad fact that causes many errors in printed projects.
- even within it's own range, adobe creates a desaster. different shortcuts fom illustrator to indesign,
you cannot copy paste between illu and indesign.
i could fill a book with those errors.
i won't give up freehand
Disrespect, Adobe!
2009-09-18 14:21:12
I've been using Freehand since 1993 alongside Photoshop, Illustrator and (due to pressure from outsourced printers) later migrated from Quark Xpress to InDesign 2 when it was released.
My objective analysis is that Photoshop was and is Adobe's flagship product, and deservedly so. InDesign is fine, but had (has) few benefits over Quark Xpress other than the promise of full compatibility with other Adobe programs (a promise yet to be fulfilled, by the way, and the fact that it is deliberately programmed to be incompatible with its superceded versions is a very cynical and somewhat sinister ploy on the part of Adobe).
Illustrator, however, continues to be a poor imitation of the application that defined a benchmark for user-friendly and intuitive vector programs. It is hard to believe that after all this time, Illustrator's programmers have still not managed to cater to as diverse a range of commercial applications as Freehand does.
The loss of Freehand is not so much felt in the areas of the design industry to which Adobe caters (new and emerging commercial applications), but it is a loss felt strongly in the long-established and permanent areas of the industry that will always have a need for the unrestricted creativity and flexible press-method adaptability that Freehand has always provided.
Those who see Freehand as an "old-timer's application" with no relevance to contemporary design have no doubt only ever used Illustrator, and have never (or hardly) roadtested Freehand's virtues.
Like any long-time PC devotee who starts playing a MAC - Once they've lived with it for a while, they'd never willingly go back.
2009-09-21 00:13:50
I happen to be casually acquainted with the gentleman behind the original development of Freehand. My understanding is that when the ownership of FH was first sold, he retained the right to "recapture" the product should it be discontinued by the purchaser. I believe he has already exercised this option once (which is the reason it went to Macromedia), but I don't know if he still retains that right, nor if he would still be interested in regaining ownership of the product.
Based on this, it's not a forgone conclusion that Freehand will die, provided the recapture provision is still in effect and this person wants (and is able) to keep it alive.
2009-09-21 10:29:20
Ma puo una societa mettere in vendita un software come Freehand negli anni far apprezzare dalle persone il programma e poi chiuderlo da un giorno all'altro mettendo in seria difficolta il lavoro di tante persone.
Non è giusto.
Magari potevano continuare a sviluppare Freehand facendolo ancor più compatibile con Illustrator, non credo che avrebbero perso clienti, ma tutt'altro.
Grazie
2009-09-21 15:57:25
I am a die hard FreeHand user. I have Illustrator CS4 on the same machine and I use it for simple type set and as a tool to get documents to production folks in a way their system requires- that's it.
If actual design work is to be performed, I do it in FreeHand. There's just no comparison.
Workflow-
1) Use FreeHand to design
2) Export as an Illustrator 7.x document
3) Open in Illustrator
4) Save as PDF
Thank you Adobe for a $600.00 translation tool...
The most puzzling aspect of Illustrator's pathetic capabilities and lack of intuitiveness is this product comes from the same company that authors Photo Shop which is a wonderful pieces of software. How does a company that can do that allow Illustrator to be published? Well, I have a theory- Illustrator's code writers are NOT in fact employed by Adobe. Illustrator is actually written and maintained by Microsoft code writers. Think about it.... it's as if the designers of the world woke up one day and found out that the Mac OS was dead and all they had left was Windows. It'll make you lose sleep.
By the way, ( I'm probably going to reveal my lack of AI experience here so let me know if I'm wrong on these ) why stop at Paste Inside? Why not Clone ( gee, what a novel idea ), how about Duplicate, how 'bout Find and Replace ( color ), the list is pretty endless.
Lastly, there's not one of us that is really that committed to FreeHand. What you and I are committed to is a basic-human-INSTINCT: PAIN AVOIDANCE. That all. Not the software. You gotta make money to survive and you can't do it with a piece of software that make a job that should take 30 minutes take an hour and a half to do.
2009-09-22 13:35:17
@ Buck Wade: Use Illustrator to save in PDF? I do it with Freehand 10 itself, including fonts. The thing is you must use the OS X print as PDF function for it instead of Freehands own PDF export. That way all fonts embed into the PDF nicely too.
2009-09-23 16:48:48
I am a FreeHand user since 3.1 (Aldus, of course). I still use it to get things done. By far, Freehand has a better type management, in fact, if you want, you can even create book with text box linked. Illustrator can´t. Adobe would say "well, use InDesign!". Of course, can else can they say. But in this new Illustrator era, I have to admit I am using it now, not as well as FH, but there I go. You cannot keep isolated. Yes, we all do work on FH but more and more people is using AI, and you need to work with that too.
What I don´t like about AI is the amount of memory it takes to run. Feels sometimes heavier than Photoshop!. FreeHand... light, quite light.
I use AI when I want to use wow effects, which FH lacks. And, finally, despite I am a big fan of FH, the truth is that its Color management is very bad. So hard to really calibrate. If there something FH needs from Adobe, is their Color engine management.
I will use FH as long as the MacOs can do it ;)
2009-09-23 22:38:05
I set up a Mac studio in the mid eighties -- goodbye drawing table, goodbye rub on lettering, hello FreeHand. Like others, I barely needed the manual to learn it, but I still wondered why it didn't do some "traditional" things. I called the phone number provided and got the fellow in Richardson,Texas who had written the program! When the next version came out, some of my inquiries had been addressed and implemented. Through all its upgrades (well, maybe not FreeHand 7) it had just gotten better. That is over now. I am so sad. I still work in it as I watch it approaching a slow, painful, death.
Oh yes, I bought AI at the same time -- I tried to use it. I hated the drawing tools. I still loathe them. Alex is correct about the high end special effects and color management. Still, FreeHand remains so much more intuitive, it is difficult not to at least start a project in it. But, at the moment, with PDF's so suspect out of FH, and service bureaus no longer supporting it, finishing the work in AI seems the only prudent thing to do.
Almost all of my FreeHand files are multi-page documents. AI has tried to incorporate that feature. Without going on and on about how lame their implementation of this feature is in comparison, one problem I have is that the AI files are huge.
"Just convert and/or open your FH files in AI" -- JOKE! JOKE! JOKE!
So, I am not only sad, I am angry.
Roberta
2009-09-26 20:50:30
Hello Volks,
see my wörx I created with Freehand!!!!!!!!!!!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/24023539@N08/
Freehand is the only answer!
Michael from Germany
2009-10-01 10:31:10
It is so frustrating! I want to start using illustrator fully, but like most freehand users migrating to illustrator is just too painful. I just can't bring myself to leave freehand and all the brilliant little features it offers behind. I just can’t put myself through the torture of having to use a program that oppresses my creativity, speed & efficiency as a graphic designer...
why can’t adobe just get it right? After all they know how freehand works & what makes it a far superior, less restrictive design tool.
If adobe introduced the following features to future versions of illustrator life would be fantastic, life would be wonderful... I love what I do, I love being a graphic designer...this could all change soon if adobe don’t do something quick!
• The most important feature of all is the PASTE INSIDE feature! PLEASE adobe introduce this feature to cs5 and you will probably find 99% of freehand users consider migrating. The way PASTE INSIDE works is far superior to that of clipping masks...being able to PASTE ELEMENTS INSIDE of other shapes which actually retain their appearance is truly a brilliant feature that must someday be adopted by illustrator.
• Secondly...when an object or objects are grouped, why can’t the visual way it appears when selected change? In freehand this is done simply by changing many points or a text box into 4 simple points, one in each corner...why should we have to read whether something is grouped or not?
• Thirdly...SELECTING objects is a very longwinded process in illustrator...if I have many elements on my page and only want to select one or two of these with my marquee...then why does it select everything that it touches (ie page borders, and other objects away from the one you actually want)...It seems I spend half my time de-selecting the things we don’t want selected!
• Fourthly...SELECTING THROUGH OBJECTS...another fantastic feature freehand offers!...by simply holding down the CONTROL KEY selecting invisible objects or text behind other objects or text is done with the click of your mouse...
and last but not least...some of the other little things that would be brilliant if introduced into illustrator...drawing and changing the appearance of simple things like stars...being able to visually determine how an object is going to look or how many sides it is going to have before you actually draw is very useful...and then being able to alter it’s appearance once drawn is even better...also on a path could be a lot better...
PLEASE ADOBE HELP US OUT!
even one or two of the above features especially PASTE INSIDE would make for a far superior version of ILLUSTRATOR...AND MANY, MANY MORE FREEHAND USERS MIGRATING...
2009-10-02 14:28:32
Ask any cartographer, FreeHand is the tool of choice, still!
2009-10-04 23:50:59
My comment is short and sweet... Boycott Adobe !!!
I said it in another forum, i will not give those shysters 1 cent more.
Until or unless they change their pig headed position, OR pass the Ball !
Adobe, ARE WRONG PERIOD ! and all the Illustrator proponents are clearly masochists ( i have been forced to use it many times so I do know it, and
it SUCKS !):
masochist: An individual who gains gratification from pain, deprivation, degradation, etc., inflicted or imposed on oneself, either as a result of one's own actions or the actions of others, (Adobe) esp. the tendency to seek this form of gratification.
...OK not so short, Sorry, but I really HATE Adobe !!!
2009-10-07 21:59:54
Save FreeHand!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
2009-10-09 08:29:02
Save FreeHand!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
2009-10-09 15:20:24
I use Freehand....sense my vibe!
2009-10-13 16:45:29
Living in Canada and using Freehand since version 2. MX still works in OS X (10.5.6) with all problems mentioned in this long thread, but IT WORKS.
2009-10-13 17:57:28
Always like FreeHand best. I went from Illustrator 1.0 to FreeHand and loved it for years, I wasn't crazy about the MX upgrades, in my mind FreeHand 8-9 were the best. I am now forced to use Illustrator now (which I don't hate), it just should be made easier to use. The simple act of selecting a point in a complex drawing can be mind blowing, it should be a simple click as it was in FreeHand. Text on a path - a thing of beauty in FreeHand... ah the good old days.
2009-10-13 20:04:33
Always like FreeHand best. I went from Illustrator 1.0 to FreeHand and loved it for years, I wasn't crazy about the MX upgrades, in my mind FreeHand 8-9 were the best. I am now forced to use Illustrator now (which I don't hate), it just should be made easier to use. The simple act of selecting a point in a complex drawing can be mind blowing, it should be a simple click as it was in FreeHand. Text on a path - a thing of beauty in FreeHand... ah the good old days.
2009-10-13 21:29:09
I use Freehand MX on OS X 10.5. Have done for many years. Yes, one has to convert type to paths before exporting as PDF. But there are so many other great, easy-to-use features that make it impossible to give Freehand up. Have tried AI, but really do not feel 'comfortable' with it. So I continue to use Freehand . . . and hopefully will not be forced to stop. I live in South Africa and I'm delighted and amazed to find so many people from all over the world who feel the same way as I do about Freehand. Long live Freehand!!!!!!!
2009-10-13 22:53:37
Does anybody else think what's needed is for Apple to buy the IPR for Freehand from Adobe and bring out their own version? Can anybody think of anyone else who'd have the clout AND the talent to pull it off? I can see it now:
- 2010: Apple HandFree Pro 1.0
- 2015: Adobe announces record revenues from Flash. Total revenue from all other products: five figures.
- 2018: Adobe announces name change to Flash, Inc. Snarky bloggers add "In The Pan" en masse.
2009-10-15 17:32:21
Freehand smokes illustrator in many areas, despite the extra level of complication that Adobe like to apply to it at every CS version upgrade. Indeed, the more they add to CS, the more they fall away from the quick and simple nature of Freehhand and its elegant simplicity. Just one example...
If I have a few different vector objects on top of one another and I want to select the one at the bottom despite it being completely overlapped by other objects... which of the following is quicker?...
A: select each individual object above the item (sometimes many) and lock each one. Then, after you have manipulated the target object you still have to go back and unlock them
B: Have a simple key combination that when held allows the user to "click through" all the objects in turn almost instantly
Illustrator is over-complicated and has far too many pallets and sub-pallets that the majority of users would never need anyway. It is also slow, buggy and one hell of a hog on processor power and RAM, awkward to quite garbage..
2009-10-17 19:11:39
I use Freehand for my creative process. Because it is a speed champ, I can create ideas "on the fly" or produce a myriad of options on logos, mastheads, type design, web mockups, covers, etc. From there, I can pull the artwork into Illustrator for enhancing with special effects or finalizing to PDF.
The point is, Freehand CAN exist with Illustrator and be a benefit to both. Adobe should recognize that it's not about one replacing the other for this is only breeding the frustration and ill-will I see here and on many other forums, blogs and websites. I too was hurt when Adobe announced Freehand was discontinued years ago and so I learned Illustrator. But I see it's weaknesses and now I am an activist for upgrading Freehand!
I hope that all who have contributed to these comments have gone to the Free Freehand website:
http://www.freefreehand.org/
I also urge you to contact your friends and mates who own, use or converted to Illustrator CS3-4 to go to http://www.freefreehand.org/
It's worth it.
2009-10-21 18:29:01
I soooo share the views of other Freehand users published here, having used it for over 20 years. Freehand is absolutely core to our business. Always has been. Like a few other programs I can think of - Photoshop, Graphic Convertor etc I cannot see the business functioning efficiently without Freehand. I use it every day. As I am now past the half century, I am beginning to wonder if I can make it to the end of my career without having to get overly involved in that pesky Illustrator.
2009-10-23 05:45:34
Here's an example of ILLUSTRATOR's clumsiness in the real world…
Many lasercutting and contour-plotting presses require all stroke elements of a vector image to be converted to extended fill. This was a simple process in FREEHAND, but an absolute pain in ILLUSTRATOR.
Here's the procedure as I've written it for our design crew, outlining the procedure in both programs:
HOW TO TRACE AN EXISTING VECTOR OBJECT TO CONVERT A STROKE-WIDTH TO A PERIMETER-FILL:
Firstly, turn the vector object's stroke and fill to BLACK, then do the following:
IN FREEHAND:
1) Select the TRACE tool from the palette.
2) Trace a marquee over the entire object.
Done!
IN ILLUSTRATOR:
1) Select the vector object
2) Go to OBJECT/RASTERISE (Choose COLOR MODEL: Greyscale).
3) Click OK.
4) Go to OBJECT/LIVE TRACE/MAKE AND EXPAND
5) Ungroup the object
6) Go to OBJECT/COMPOUND PATH/RELEASE
7) Select the outer marquee strokes and delete (there will be several broken segments)
8) Select all other strokes one at a time and DELETE (as there will be multiple overlaid strokes. These must be removed before compound paths can be made)
9) Shift/Select the collective strokes of each element in the object that has transparent sections (e.g: "donut" objects such as "O"s,"A"s and "b"s), then go to OBJECT/COMPOUND PATH/MAKE.
10) Once all elements have been made into compound paths, select the whole object and GROUP.
Finally done.
2009-10-28 00:45:16
@ Mark
There's plenty of other things that Freehand can do a lot quicker than Illustrator. thanks for pointing out another !
Also, has this blog about Freehand been the most popular one for CR or what? Come on... it must be!
2009-10-28 15:23:56
Apple Freehand XII would be nice :-)
2009-10-28 19:36:49
I'm another long time FreeHand and Quark user.
I made the switch to InDesign after resisting for ages, and now would be reluctant to switch back.
However, the thing I find most ironic, is that InDesign feels more like FreeHand to me than Illustrator. InDesign, like FreeHand, has a simple keyboard shortcut for selecting down through a stack of objects, and also supports 'paste inside/into' – although not as flexible as FreeHand. Grouped objects behave as one would expect. The layer panel is just that, not a bloated object manager. Even InDesigns pen tool feels better than Illustrators.
For rudimentary vector work I find myself using InDesign (rather than waiting 5 minutes for Illustrator to launch). For more complex projects I'd love to be able to use a fully functioning, OSX native version of FreeHand.
2009-11-02 13:00:58
since my last post I have thought about the prospect of adobe continuing to make illustrator more & more like freehand...(maybe I was wrong to request or even think this), after all they have already been trying to do this for years now and are still no further forward in succeeding or solving the fundamental problems that make illustrator such a painful and inefficient application to work with...
it's quite simple...there is no solution to this other than redevelopment of freehand itself!
SO THIS ONE GOES OUT TO ADOBE!
PLEASE RECONSIDER FUTURE DEVELOPMENT OF FREEHAND!
If you can't do that then at least give us some HONEST answers and your reasons for not doing so...
I simply cannot understand why you ADOBE won't listen to the many numbers of designers still using freehand.
you have been trying to convert us and make it harder for us to use freehand for years now, and still we decide to use freehand...does this not tell you something about how strongly we as freehand users feel towards this magnificent product?
You have isolated a large section of designers around the world by trying to force them into using a program that quite simply isn't good enough yet! the design world would be a much happier place if it were illustrator that had been stopped in it's prime and freehand had been allowed to grow!
Believe me, and I think I speak for tens of thousands of fellow designers! illustrator is just not good enough for those of us who like to work creatively and efficiently! so why should we start crawling again...when we had already learned how to run!
PLEASE ADOBE, IF YOUR OUT THERE...LISTEN!
THE OPPRESSION MUST END! AND DEVELOPMENT MUST BEGIN!
loyal freehand user,
mark
2009-11-02 14:16:19
I'm another long time FreeHand and Quark user.
I made the switch to InDesign after resisting for ages, and now would be reluctant to switch back.
However, the thing I find most ironic, is that InDesign feels more like FreeHand to me than Illustrator. InDesign, like FreeHand, has a simple keyboard shortcut for selecting down through a stack of objects, and also supports 'paste inside/into' – although not as flexible as FreeHand. Grouped objects behave as one would expect. The layer panel is just that, not a bloated object manager. Even InDesigns pen tool feels better than Illustrators.
For rudimentary vector work I find myself using InDesign (rather than waiting 5 minutes for Illustrator to launch). For more complex projects I'd love to be able to use a fully functioning, OSX native version of FreeHand.
2009-11-02 14:16:48
since my last post I have thought about the prospect of adobe continuing to make illustrator more & more like freehand...(maybe I was wrong to request or even think this), after all they have already been trying to do this for years now and are still no further forward in succeeding or solving the fundamental problems that make illustrator such a painful and inefficient application to work with...
it's quite simple...there is no solution to this other than redevelopment of freehand itself!
SO THIS ONE GOES OUT TO ADOBE!
PLEASE RECONSIDER FUTURE DEVELOPMENT OF FREEHAND!
If you can't do that then at least give us some HONEST answers and your reasons for not doing so...
I simply cannot understand why you ADOBE won't listen to the many numbers of designers still using freehand.
you have been trying to convert us and make it harder for us to use freehand for years now, and still we decide to use freehand...does this not tell you something about how strongly we as freehand users feel towards this magnificent product?
You have isolated a large section of designers around the world by trying to force them into using a program that quite simply isn't good enough yet! the design world would be a much happier place if it were illustrator that had been stopped in it's prime and freehand had been allowed to grow!
Believe me, and I think I speak for tens of thousands of fellow designers! illustrator is just not good enough for those of us who like to work creatively and efficiently! so why should we start crawling again...when we had already learned how to run!
PLEASE ADOBE, IF YOUR OUT THERE...LISTEN!
THE OPPRESSION MUST END! AND DEVELOPMENT MUST BEGIN!
loyal freehand user,
mark
2009-11-02 14:28:06
The doomsday bell is tolling ...
By necessity, I was obliged to purchase a new MAC G5 which came bundled with Snow Leopard (OS 10.6.1).
Tragedy: FREEHAND won't run!
Does anyone know a fix to this, or am I doomed to spend the rest of my working days deselecting and reselecting points and guides and objects for the sake of shifting a single element a few millimetres this way or that?
My last holdout is my Macbook Pro - still on OS 10.4.11. Looks like I'll be holding onto that for dear life!
2009-11-02 14:42:19
For the benefit of all those who have commented on this Freehand Anonymous article (written back on February 2009); there is a previous version with earlier comments not shown here; many well-written and insightful thoughts:
http://www.creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2009/february/freehand-anonymous
So, besides the 96 comments on this page, there are 66 more comments at the link above.
As a previous poster said, this has to be one of the most popular CR blogs!
2009-11-02 23:04:16
On that previous forum, one poster said:
"According to this and other forums, almost everyone who doesn't like Illustrator started out on Freehand and couldn't adjust. That's what they are used to. I started with Illustrator 88 and only tried Freehand recently. I found it far more difficult to use than Illustrator. So perhaps it's just what you already know. Illustrator CS4 seems to have fixed everything else Freehanders liked."
Sorry, I have to disagree. I've run Illustrator and Freehand parallel to each other since '95. Freehand is superior in execution time due to far less steps required in many of the tasks that both programs are designed to handle. Freehand also has remained more compatible for export to Photoshop and InDesign (go figure!) without the need to tweak document settings prior to exporting, and also more compatible with our studio printers. I've run the trial of CS4 and for me at least, Illustrator still has not satisfactorily emulated Freehand enough to warrant the upgrade to CS4 or the surrender of my Freehand licence.
Illustrator is essentially a work-around program. That is, it "works around" a problem it can't resolve. Freehand just fixes the problem, full stop!
...And just for the record, we're in Australia. So it's not just Europe that's a fan of Freehand.
2009-11-05 07:25:46
Hi Marc,
couldn't agree more! it's not that we can't get used to illustrator...it's cos we don't want to...after all why should we MAKE DO with a program that is not a patch freehand in terms of speed, efficiency & creative freedom! I don't think illustrator users understand that all the new features adobe are introducing to TRY and make cs4 better, are all features lifted directly from freehand anyway...i.e. editable gradients, multiple pages, and editable appearance panel...(and they can't even get those right most of the time)...
if illustrator is ever going to be a viable alternative to freehand then it is going to take adobe (at the rate they are trying to transform illustrator into freehand now), roughly 5 new versions of illustrator to even vaguely catch up...of course this is what adobe will take time over deliberately. otherwise if adobe achieve their ultimate goal overnight (which is to make illustrator as good as freehand) why would anyone buy illustrator upgrades in the future?
truth is, it's going to take years for us real freehand users to even contemplate the switch to illustrator and be happy with it...simply because it's just not good enough yet!
cheers,
mark
2009-11-06 12:42:28
I have used Freehand since the days of Aldus (was that really twenty years ago?). I mainly use it for drawing the artwork required for flags - all the UK's master flag artwork is in Freehand format! Freehand's intuitive boolean functions, built-in stars, and the ease of altering a path to follow the edges of a scanned image that is being used as a template all make Freehand an easy winner in the Illustrator/Freehand competition. I also have Illustrator CS4 (CS3, CS2, CS, etc) which I use to read files sent to me and convert into Illustrator 8 so I can open them in Freehand and to open my final Freehand files so that I can create EPS files that will play nicely with the rest of the world.
What I really want is an Intel version of Freehand that will take full advantage of the new Snow Leopard iMac Quad-core that I want to buy to replace my ageing dual G5 Power Mac.
I've just joined FreeFreehand.org to support their efforts to get Adobe to do something about this.
2009-11-07 22:13:39
Save Freehand. Sign-up now:
http://www.freefreehand.org/
:-)
2009-11-11 10:28:30
I've joined Free FreeHand org!
http://www.freefreehand.org/
2009-11-19 15:12:16
Freehand beats all the Adobe programs where it has the same features. FH is simpler, easier and just plain superior to Adobe Illustrator (any version).
I have no trouble creating PDFs with FH as some mentioned. I'm working with MAC OS 10.5.8. After some debugging FH now works perfectly in Leopard (see http://forums.adobe.com/thread/444052). When I ran it in Tiger there was never any trouble.
billiardman
2009-11-20 15:21:23
for all you freehand lovers
http://www.freefreehand.org/
2009-11-28 14:23:55
hi , my name is Kemal , and I am from Turkey
in Turkey , there is a great number of designers using freehand, (more than illustrator and corel)
we are very (terribly) unhappy to migrate to ill.
give our freehand back !
2009-11-30 17:23:18
I began my graphic designer career in 1999, learning FH and Photoshop.
For me, vector drawing was a totally new discover, which I really liked. After a few years of hard practicing, I can say that I could master most of FH's useful features through its intuitive interface.
I loved its flexibility: apart from bitmap images, I could make all the graphic elements from the very same program: no need to bounce back and forth from the layout app to the drawing one.
Now... I still use it! Version 11.0.2 keeps working in Snow Leopard, even if with some problems. The bad side is the unreliable pdf export function.
I rely on InDesign for it, but I still prefer good ol' Fh to the clumsy and bloated Illustrator for all the vector elements I have to make.
2009-12-08 10:46:50
I had no idea! I moved over to Illustrator a few years back, but only now realize how much i miss Freehand.
I crave designing something in Freehand so much right now!
Thank you!
2009-12-08 14:46:49
In a nutshell:
FREEHAND is that nice simple sable brush that allows creative flourishes with a flick of the wrist.
ILLUSTRATOR is that bank-counter pen on a short chain.
2009-12-09 13:03:36
Adobe will only take my freehand copy from my cold dead hands (even if that means not upgrading my computer again)
2009-12-10 16:30:33
Adobe is the reason I haven't bought a Drawing package since they took over Freehand If I have to deal with a crappy drawing package it won't be their's, I'll buy some other piece of crap and learn to use it.
2009-12-14 06:40:15
A lot of Freehand Users are thinking that Apple should by Freehand. I think that Apple should by the hole ADOBE. They would have the money anyway...
2009-12-16 15:33:26
Enjoy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6f8CKjsYS9k
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qZgT3fnwOU
2009-12-19 18:10:48
I've designed in Freehand for years. Freehand MX has been working marvelously on my PowerMac G4. Lightening fast very easy. Very elegant. Just bought an IMac all in one with Snow Leopard. It seems I can't bring my MX into this system. I've used Illustrator and have found as a business, that there is no use for the program. It is slow and needlessly complicated. Even if you could charge the client for the clumsy way this program operates, you'd probably jump out a window due to frustration. If there are any Mac pros out there who can tell me how to get MX into Snow Leopard, I'd be in your debt. Otherwise, I'm seriously thinking of bringing this beautiful Mac Bac.
2009-12-20 10:57:39
Installing Adobe FreeHandMX on Snow Leopard:
http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/504/cpsid_50468.html
2009-12-20 19:34:22
Can any individual or company just re-do a Freehand-a-like software? any ex-micromedia emplyees?
APPLE should write a piece of software like that. please lobby Apple to do one.
i hate indesign! FXXK!! who in the fucking world design page UNDER another page? we want to lay it all out on the same table, u stupid ADOBE!!!
2009-12-24 01:33:47
Former Aldus employee here who was on the FreeHand support team in 1990-1991. I actually started on Illustrator before I started using FreeHand, back in the earliest Illustrator days. Then FreeHand came around, and it was so much better that I switched and never looked back, and soon managed to get a job at Aldus, too. (I still think PageMaker was better than Quark in many ways -- don't even get me started on that one.)
Anyway, I'm glad to see that people still love FreeHand. My dream is a proper OS X Intel-native FreeHand with all the modern bells and whistles but still FreeHand and not some bastardized Adobe creation.
2009-12-26 22:38:18
@Wendi Dunlap
I still use ALDUS Freehand 3 and consider it the best vector program ever made. It's a sad state of affairs when Illustrator can't do things in 2010 that i was able to do in FH3 in 1991!
I think that Macromedia development didn't help much the brilliant program and was one of the causes of its demise. Likewise, I dream of a proper Intel native Freehand vector tool . I wonder if some former Aldus developers would be interested in such an enterprise under an independent developer. (or Apple coming to the rescue)
2009-12-31 02:14:58
Well, I must say, I didn't have a chance to read ALL of the posts because I've got so much work backed up from having to use Illustrator and Indesign instead of the ONE slick and streamlined program I've been used to for the last 18 years. Freehand was the shit. . . Pagemaker and Illustrator in one damn program.
I've been using AI and ID for about a year now and noticed that, for a company that forced used into this crap, converting from Freehand files could have less issues with TIF files shifting around and color swatches and handling being somewhat unpredictable.
Now, to be fair, the only saving grace is that Adobe had the foresight to take a few pages from Macromedia's playbook and add decent type tools and multipage capability; because I want to continue to work in ONE program. And, I must say, the trace tools are a bit better in AI.
On another note: those who say you have to do all page layout in Pagemaker or InDesign and only graphics in Illustrator can bite me. I came into a shop and doubled their speed with Freehand replacing someone bouncing back and forth from one clunky program to another (AI and Quark) At that time, Ai didn't even have a glimmer of Freehand's capability.
I'm AM a former Freehand User and, yes, I'm still a little pissed.
2010-01-07 19:38:36
Oh god, I'm at my wit's end. Can someone please tell me if Illustrator is capable of changing one swatch colour to another swatch colour in a single move like Freehand, and automatically changing all the relevent elements of a graphic accordingly? Surely there's a way to do this...?
At the moment I'm ADDING a colour to the swatch, then trying to select all individual elements of that old colour to click-change to the new colour. That can't be how Illustrator expects us to do it, surely???
Please help, guys! My new MAC won't let me open Freehand, and I have a big job to edit.
2010-01-20 06:56:27
I'm not ashamed to say this:
I'm a designer and I use freehand.
2010-01-26 18:41:34
Used FreeHand MX since it came out for designing faceplates on desktop communications equipment, and later began using it for digital design for relief (Letterpress) dies. I am happy to report that so far the largest die providers still take FH11 files. And, of course, all the commentary posted here over the last year regarding the innate intuitiveness I can confirm as well. FreeHand is an excellent example of Economy of Motion. It's hard to give up something you feel so absolutely confident with.
To be fair, one thing I do like about Illustrator CS4 is it's LiveTrace feature. I do a lot of .jpg to vector conversions and have been using other venues, but LiveTrace tops them all. And I have discovered that unlike the FH8, FH10, Illistrator 10 and CS2 days, Illustrator will communicate with FreeHand via .pdf. I tried making the two handshake for years with .eps, only to find they don't do it without confusion. But so far, I've been able to do my vector conversions from Illustrator's LiveTrace, save it as a .pdf file, and happily import it into FreeHand MX for the editing that I can only do on FreeHand . . . not Illustrator.
I hasten to add that the Cairo pdf file generated by the shareware vector programme InkScape also does a good handshake with FreeHand, and has a surprisingly nice vector engine, actually on par with Vector Magic.
2010-01-27 01:52:08
Almost everyday we have to think how to acheive something in Illustrator that was second nature and intuitive in freehand. We still use it and it still knocks the socks off CS4. Is this the future for grey designers? Are we destined to forever hark on about the good old days when computers transformed our creativity and opened up new possiblities instead of closing them down?
I loved it when Apple loved us.. now they are turning into phone dealers.
2010-01-29 14:36:10
Nat:
In illustrator click on the colour in your graphic you want to replace - then go to menu bar - click select - same fill colour (or whatever), that will select all elements of that colour - then replace with new colour in your swatch. Easy really.
2010-01-29 14:50:12
All these posts almost warrant a facebook group!!! I'm a die hard freehand fan. I'll only use illustrator to colour up jobs. i am always transporting back to do tricky illustration jobs. One tool does it all!!!!
Yes others may frown and look down, but i don't care i'll be finished hours before you are!!
2010-01-29 14:59:39
They may take our lives, but they'll never take our Freehand...
2010-01-29 15:15:12
My name is Hannah and I'm a freehand user. It's all I've known and I'm actually a young-un! - my art school must have been the last in the country to still be on freehand, and strangely/luckily the agency I went to work at after was freehand too. So I've just not had reason to get to grips with AI...and now reading all your comments about how perfect FH is in comparison, I don't want to! [wail wail].
2010-01-29 16:55:52
This is great news, I don't feel so old fashioned and more. I did my apprenticeship with Aldus Freehand 3 when mobile phones were the size of breeze blocks and have never looked back. I've tried to get on with illustrator but hate that you can't simple paste an object inside an object.
2010-01-29 17:06:23
Hi, My name is Joe and I'm a Freehand user and hope I will always be. I started using Freehand back in 1988
on my Mac Plus when I started my screenprinting shop and have used it ever since. I have tried to use
Illustrator many times but have always gone back to Freehand. I hope one day Adobe will wake up and start
to upgrade the program or sell it to a company that will. I still hate Adobe for killing Pagemaker but thats another story.
2010-02-02 21:43:27
Hi, My name is Jon and Im a Freehand user. I try and try like Joe and many others to do the things I need to in illustrator but always give up because freehand is just so mush easier, can't Adobe just copy every function into illustrator that isn't already there? They own the rights now. I use freehand to create vinyl cutpaths a lot faster than if I was using freehand - even my vinyl cutter likes Freehand better, the curves are smoother!
2010-02-07 23:44:43
Hi, My name is David and I am a Freehand User, I use it for everything, the AI users can't understand how i do my work, they are amazed when they see it, cuz they cannot do what I do with their CS4, I really wish and hope that something be done to save FH. I know it's probably too late but as an artist being forced to use one dumb software is like being told to just use one kind of paintbrush. a very un-inspiring form of creativity.
2010-02-26 19:22:17
I've been doing a twelve page magazine for fifteen years in Freehand. Where on earth I'm going to do it if Freehand is discontinued? Plus printers in Chile works only with Freehand due to a compatibility with the Pantone? We want Freehand updated as soon as possible, if not, at least, provide an everlasting platform for it!!! Like Windows 7, 8, 9, 10, etc.
2010-03-10 23:43:00
I used to love Freehand, both on Mac and PC, and now I have to use Illustrator it's been like moving from InDesign back to Quark! By this I mean Illustrator and Quark are both clunky, primitive programs with poor user interfaces which have mysteriously become "industry standads". Good grief, even Corel is easier to draw beziers in than Illustrator!
2010-03-16 13:22:36
I have been using FreeHand since 1989.
I still use FreeHand 10, AND Illustrator CS4.
And I can tell you, no matter what, FreeHand IS WAY BETTER than Illustrator for TECHNICAL DRAWING. Illustrator is such a pain for precise, technical line drawings. I do a lot of package design. Drawing mechanicals for packages, boxes and sorts is easier, faster, and much more accurate than illustrator. Illustrator just doesn't snap the same way. The snap to point option in FreeHand is beautiful. By comparison, Illustrator's Smart Guides is confusing and you end up wasting time making thing click together.
Illustrator is great for, well, illustration work. FreeHand is still an indispensable tool. Try drawing a floor plan in Illustrator, it just doesn't work the same.
2010-03-18 03:00:17
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