Illustrator capabilities on IPad Pro?

I am looking at replacing my 2006 MacBook Pro, and love the touchscreen and pencil of the iPad Pro, but I’m worried about being able to continue to use Illustrator to manipulate fonts that I’ve downloaded off the internet. I make signs and NEED to have the ability to type up a phrase in a custom font, and then manipulate the kerning, spacing, layout, everything. Illustrator Draw looks like it’s no more than a “paint” program. I have it on my phone and it’s worthless. I don’t need to have Illustrator per say, but I need those specific functions.


Does anyone have any information on wether the iPad Pro would work for this process? I’m needing something that’s under $1000 with a touchscreen which is why I’ve ruled out the MacBooks.

Posted on Feb 12, 2018 5:44 PM

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4 replies

Feb 13, 2018 7:36 AM in response to stellafromrenton

Fonts are problematic on iPads and iOS.

Some apps allow bring in fonts into apps, others not.

Take a look at an iOS app called Any font.

Most drawing apps will allow most of the common drawing app file formats.

Also, not sure if these vector drawing apps allow vector conversions of fonts/typefaces or not.

iOS is NOT Mac OS, so you would need to read the descriptions of these vector style apps to see if the app is capable of converting fonts/typefaces into vector paths or not.

At the very least, you could trace over a font in vector form for any vector app that can’t convert the text of font/typeface into a vector path.

Graphic for iPad does do text/type conversion

Inkpad and Touch Draw look to do this, as well as importing type.

Intaglio Sketchpad looks to have some form of text manipulation, too!

I don’t see any of this type conversion/manipulation in Vectornator Pro, though.


I mention Concepts drawing/ideation app ONLY because it covers lots of design disciplines and territories that make it a handy app for complete concept and ideation drawing and creation either in sketch form or more precise drawing styles and you may find this app a great app to just loosely or more accurately sketch or plan out drawings or type ideas or whatever level drawing/sketching and writing you do.


You will need to really read the vector apps descriptions to see which one/s of thess app/s will fill what you need them to do.


I can’t stress enough that the way iPads and iOS work is way different than how things are done on a Macbook with a full computer OS, like Mac OS X or macOS!

Multitasking on an iPad Pro is better, but still extremely limited.


There is no trackpad/mouse supoort. Only stylus and touch support on the iPad Pro,

The iPad Pro is no different from any other iPad or iOS device.

The “Pro” moniker is only about the Apple Pencil.

Feb 12, 2018 9:54 PM in response to stellafromrenton

I, also, forgot to mention.

An iPad, NO iPad is a full laptop replacement, as yet.

iPad are still companion devices to a full blown laptop/desktop computer.

One if the things you cannot use with iPads is your standard, run of the mill external USB hard drives or normal USB flash drives.

So, you will need to find alternatives to get data files into your iPad, either using “cloud”, off-site data storage server services, like DropBox, Google Drive, BOX, Amazon Cloud drive, etc.


AND/OR


There are a few special storage devices for mobile devices. There are portable, bulit-in WiFi hotspot hard drives for mobile devices made by Western Digital and Seagate.


http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=1330


http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=1660


http://www.seagate.com/consumer/stream/



There are special mobile lightning connected and built in WiFi Hot spot, USB flash drives made by SanDisk (now owned by Western Digital)


https://www.sandisk.com/home/mobile-device-storage/ixpand


https://www.sandisk.com/home/mobile-device-storage/connect-wireless-stick


http://www.adamelements.com/iKlips/iklips.html


You will really need to learn how these iOS apps work and learn how to work within the system framework of iOS.

If you have never used an iPad to do real work on, there is going to be a learning curve and it isn’t going to come easy in one or two weeks!

Just giving you fair warning and a healthy heads-up.

I have gotten very proficient on iOS and iPads over nearly an 8-year span. Since I first owned the original, 2010 iPad!


Good Luck to You!

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Illustrator capabilities on IPad Pro?

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