Both Layers and Groups are essential Illustrator features that help keep complex drawings organized and easier to work with.

Unfortunately, Illustrator doesn't let you truly combine the features. That is, if you select items that live on different layers, and then choose Object > Group (in order to treat them as a single unit for selecting, moving and transforming), Illustrator moves all of the selected elements into sublayers of the topmost selected item's layer.

I have a gripe about Photoshop's Canvas Size dialog box (Image > Canvas Size), the feature you use to increase the editable area in an image. We're up to version 53 now, I believe, and there's still no Preview button. Not even in the Super Extended Extra Mega version.

Oh sure, it can count how many thousands of paramecium with three antennae are in a slide, but preview the amount of canvas I want to add to an image? Beyond its abilities.

Ever since I waved goodbye to my beloved XPress-to-HTML converter tool, BeyondPress XT (Extensis dropped it after QuarkXPress v5 was released) I've been searching for the equivalent plug-in or feature for Adobe InDesign. I needed a way to quickly export the text and images from my InDesign files to HTML, and I was constantly asked by my clients how to do the same.

Let's say you're in Acrobat and you need to add some text to a PDF, in the margin or under an image or to fill out a static form field, and you want that text to appear in the printouts, just like the rest of the text. The original file that was exported to PDF isn't available, all you've got is the PDF itself. Which tool do you turn to?

Both Layers and Groups are essential Illustrator features that help keep complex drawings organized and easier to work with.

Unfortunately, Illustrator doesn't let you truly combine the features. That is, if you select items that live on different layers, and then choose Object > Group (in order to treat them as a single unit for selecting, moving and transforming), Illustrator moves all of the selected elements into sublayers of the topmost selected item's layer.