Adobe FreeHand's Future

[Andrew B.]

According to an article at http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/, Adobe will announce that it has no plans to update FreeHand or provide patches for new or recent operating systems. Adobe will, however, continue to sell FreeHand and provide technical support.

The article also states that Adobe will offer an FreeHand upgrade to Illustrator CS3 for $199 U.S., and that the upgrade will be available worldwide.

[DTP Guy]

Also, according to John Nack's Blog, Adobe are providing free training resources for those planning to switch. (http://www.adobe.com/products/illustrator/switch/)

[annc]

Originally Posted by Andrew B.

According to an article at http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/, Adobe will announce that it has no plans to update Freehand or provide patches for new or recent operating systems.

I was always afraid of that. Most mapmakers used FreeHand, and I used it because Illustrator made no sense to me when I first tried it in 1987, whereas FreeHand came easily to me.

Now I have CS3 and will be forced to use Illustrator at some stage, although my upgrade app was FreeHand 10...

[ktinkel]

Originally Posted by Andrew B.

Adobe will announce that it has no plans to update Freehand or provide patches for new or recent operating systems. Adobe will, however, continue to sell Freehand and provide technical support.

I have been expecting as much. Wonder if Freehand is still the favored tool of mapmakers. If so, ouch — lots of relearning to do.

I learned Illustrator first — bought version 1.0 (it was my third expensive piece of software, after Word and PageMaker 1). Since it was my first vector-drawing program, it seemed intuitive to me.

On the other hand, when I used Freehand during the period it supported kerning and Illustrator didn’t (and during many years with Fontographer, which is Freehand-like), I came to prefer that mode of working.

But I have always kept Illustrator current (at least until now — not sure this computer will do well with CS3), and can live with it. Not so the mapmakers, who will be fuming (though I doubt they are surprised).

[annc]

Not that it's likely to matter for much longer, but it's FreeHand, not Freehand. ;-)

[ktinkel]

Originally Posted by annc

Not that it's likely to matter for much longer, but it's FreeHand, not Freehand. ;-)

I can’t be bothered .

If I had a vote, I would forbid all interior caps!

Why Photoshop but InDesign and FreeHand? There is no rhyme nor reason to it.

[Andrew B.]

Originally Posted by annc

I was always afraid of that. Most mapmakers used FreeHand, and I used it because Illustrator made no sense to me when I first tried it in 1987, whereas FreeHand came easily to me.

I noticed that ACDSee is trying to entice mapmakers by adding GIS import to Canvas. I wonder if some of them will switch to Canvas.

[JVegVT]

I read about this last week. I was wondering when it would be discussed here. When days went by, I was thinking that nobody cared.

There's something sad about long-established products biting the dust.
--Judy M.

[annc]

Originally Posted by Andrew B.

I noticed that ACDSee is trying to entice mapmakers by adding GIS import to Canvas. I wonder if some of them will switch to Canvas.

They'll have to sell it to the market, which is reasonably small and quite diverse. I worked for many years in the petroleum industry, and the drafters all used FreeHand.

[annc]

Originally Posted by ktinkel

I can’t be bothered .

If I had a vote, I would forbid all interior caps!

Why Photoshop but InDesign and FreeHand? There is no rhyme nor reason to it.

Well, as you know even better than I do, Adobe bought Photoshop but created InDesign, and FreeHand was obviously born during the time of the internal capitals.