If you don't have the time or the money to take a lengthy class on Adobe Illustrator, just buy this book. There are a lot of instructional books out there for Illustrator and other Adobe programs, but this is by far the best and most concise. It includes a CD with lessons and images, and if you start at the beginning and plow through it, you'll learn Illustrator competently enough to get you up and running with the program.

This workbook is incredibly useful for gaining a thorough understanding of Adobe Illustrator. Shortcuts are introduced throughout the lessons and extra information is included in grey text boxes in the book along the way. Lessons are outlined well in the table of contents for quick reference.

This book combined with the CD is fabulous. Immediately you feel like your getting the hang of this very complex software.

This books gives you tht basic ins and outs of Illustrator in a comprehensive step by step format.

Adobe Illustrator CS Classroom in a Book (like the other books in the series) is extremely thorough, providing repeated opportunities to try the features of the software. After finishing the lessons, it's a great resource to have nearby.

The 19 lessons provide step-by-step instructions and screenshots for both Mac and Windows environments, so you don't have to worry about which version of Illustrator you are using. Each lesson also ends with Review Questions (with answers) to help you sum up the main points of each lesson. The attached CD-ROM provides partially finished files to use in the lessons and examples of the finished product, so you can tell if you completed the lesson successfully.

Finally, don't expect to master all of the functions by time you finish the book. You will learn quite a bit, but simply following the steps in the book once will not provide you mastery of this powerful piece of software. Still, I highly recommend this book to anyone who is serious about learning how to use Illustrator.