Expert: Nick Putthoff - 1/6/2009

Question
I recently received some Aridi http://www.aridi.com/ graphics files (zipped) as a gift.Try as I might, I cannot seem to get them to work in Ill. CS4. I tried unpacking them into the brushes folder, and though they show up in the brushes library, I cannot see them once they are selected. I want to use the .eps borders,. ai ornaments and decorative initial caps etc. Should they have been placed in another folder in Illustrator, possibly Shapes or Swatches?  The huge Aridi package also includes .png .jpeg and 'contact sheets' of images for design but get an error message from Illy saying the files are not supported. I am new to Illustrator but have moderate experience with Photoshop CS2. I have downloaded quite a lot of resources for this new software(Illustrator) and the only thing I got to load was what was supposed to be some Victorian ornaments but when I went to apply them to the corners of a new document what I got was a fat watercolour brush!!
I have searched for tutorials and 'how-tos' but found nothing on what must be a very simple solution. Please help this newbie as I've saved long and hard for this software and I'm getting nowhere fast! Thankyou in advance for any help you might offer, cheers from Australia Nick.
Yours Sincerely, Catherine.

Answer
Catherine,
This is a little out of my area of knowledge since I have not upgraded to CS4 and have very little experience using brushes - but I will give it a shot.

Try changing the view for the brushes panel from the brushes flyout menu - see if List View gives you at least the name for the brushes in the library.

For the "fat watercolour brush" try setting the weight of the stroke to a very small amount - maybe .2 pt or something equivalent for the units of measurements you are using. Also set the fill to none for the object you are trying to apply a brush just to see if it helps the appearance.

Hope this helps.

Good Luck

Nick