Pros: autotrace tool, intuitive interface
Cons: limited typographic control

Freehand 8 offers a quicker learning curve over its rival Illustrator 8, despite Adobe's unified interface with Photoshop and Pagemaker. Freehand's interface contains a small selection of highly versatile tools, thus compacting the large assortment provided in Illustrator. These tools give Freehand a more intuitive approach to creating and altering paths. Freehand's best advantage over its Adobe rival is the built in autotrace tool. Freehand's autotrace tool allows users to take quick sketches and doodles (the ones made while pretending to listen to clients and management) and easily convert them into vector paths. Adobe Illustrator users would have to either manually trace scans or purchase Adobe's Streamline program. Freehand does lacks some of the high end tools of Illustrator, such as the multi-vectored gradient tool, however this will not affect most users. Illustrator gains the upper hand when dealing with typography by creating type as editable paths. Freehand's type while vector, is scalable, but not path editable until converted. The converted type does not seem to be based on the postscript or true type specifications, but on something similar to a good autotrace.