illustrator help needed, someone please?

well, i opened up illustrator.. but I dont have any of the visible tools (drawing tool, ocloring tools, etc... ) Where do I go in the options to display all the tools needed to complete a job? All I get when I open up illustrator is a canvas, and that's it.. nothing else.

someone?

Select the Windows drop down menu (top right) and choose Tools.

Everything else you need is there too, like Swatches, Stroke and Transform.

see thisis what I dont understand, I click on window, and the only options I have are: "New Window, Minimize Window, Bring all to front, Attributes, Info, Type, and Untitled".. that's it, no tools, swatches, stroke, etc... When I open illustrator I select "new document".

what's wrong here?

You should have the options listed in the screenshot below. If you don't, then you will probably have to delete your .plist file for Illustrator and restart the application.

what is thte .plist file?

I dont have any of those things under my "window" option.

Matthew_love84 said:

what is thte .plist file?

I dont have any of those things under my "window" option.

Click to expand...

.plist is a preference file.
you can find it by going to:

User>Library>Preferences (see below)

thanks, but even after I delited the .plist file under preferences.. and re-opened up illustrator I still didnt have the "tools" option under my "window" tab.

Well, the next thing I would suggest is a complete uninstall of Illustrator... and then reinstall it from your installation CD's.

What D3v1L80Y wants you to do, is to go to Finder, find Illustrator prefs, and delete it. When you open Illustrator, it will act like it's the first time it was opened, and should open the default windows, including your toolbars.

If that doesn't work, you could always try reinstalling Illustrator.

And if that STILL doesn't work, then switch to Freehand, hehe.

Freehand rocks.