Astute Manager

Astute Manager provides both a powerful Digital asset management (DAM) system and a means to installing and managing Astute Graphics plugins.

For asset management

It provides maximum time-saving features, allowing quicker, easier and more secure file sharing, organizing, backing up and restoring of Illustrator assets for the individual user or for Creative teams. 

With the Astute Manager, all the stress and hassle of resetting your Illustrator preferences is gone, instead you can quickly back up and restore those preferences and settings along with all your own custom assets such as brushes and swatches at the click of a button. Brushes and workspaces are downloaded directly into Adobe Illustrator’s folder system, not the downloads folder. No need to quit Illustrator to install.

For Astute Graphics Plugins

 It makes the task of downloading, installing, updating, and uninstalling our plugins fast and clear, bringing as much time-saving to managing your plugins as our tools have always brought to vector creative work.

Across all areas the Astute Manager consistently provides live information on any updates or upgrades available.

1. Download Astute Manager (Windows)

Download Astute Manager for Windows »

2. Open download

Locate the downloaded MSI installer and doubleclick on Astute Manager.msi to open.

Open Downloaded Astute Manager.msi

3. Install

When asked by Windows if you want to allow the app to make changes to your device, agree by clicking on Yes.

You can also click on the Show more details button in this Windows dialogue to confirm the version of the Astute Manager you are installing.

Install Astute Manager (Windows)

4. Locate

Once installed and run, you can locate the Astute Manager in the Windows Tray.

Locate Astute Manager in Windows Tray

5. Login

The Astute Manager window will automatically open requesting your Astute Graphics account email and password. Enter your email and password, then click on the Sign in button.

Login to your Astute Manager

6. Install Plugins

Please refer to Plugin management options in Astute Manager.

It is highly recommended to have the Astute Manager loaded in the menu bar/task bar at all times (or at least on a regular basis) to ensure that you are not inconvenienced with temporary license inactivity.

If you wish to transfer to a different computer, simply log out of the Astute Manager on the previous computer and log in on the new machine. The licensing will follow automatically. You can keep the plugins installed on both (or more) computers, but computers not actively logged into the Astute Manager will deactivate.

1. Download Astute Manager (macOS)

Download Astute Manager for macOS »

2. Open download

Locate the download in the Finder and doubleclick on the Astute Manager.dmg file to open.

If macOS asks you're sure you want to open an app downloaded from the internet, click Open to continue.

Open Downloaded Astute Manager.dmg

3. Install

With the DMG file opened, drag the Astute Manager icon from the left-side of the window and drop it over to the Applications folder icon on the right.

Drag Astute Manager into Applications Folder (macOS)

4. Start

Locate Astute Manager in your Applications folder and doubleclick to start it.

Locate Astute Manager in Applications Folder

5. Authorize

Upon first running a new installation of the Astute Manager, macOS will ask you to authorize the installation of the software.

Enter your macOS account login username and password as prompted, then click on the Install Helper button.

Authorize Astute Manager with System Password

macOS will also ask you to authorize the Astute Manager to find devices on local networks.

Find devices on local networks

And finally, you will be asked to allow the Astute Manager to access files in your Documents folder.

Access request to Documents folder

6. Locate

Once installed and run, you can locate the Astute Manager on the right of the macOS top bar as highlighted below.

Astute Manager Location (macOS)

7. Login

The Astute Manager window will automatically open requesting your Astute Graphics account email and password. Enter your email and password, then click on the Sign in button.

Login to your Astute Manager

8. EULA

Upon successfully entering your Astute Graphics email and password, you will be presented with the End User License Agreement (EULA).

Read the terms, and if in agreement, click on the I agree button.

9. Install Plugins

Please refer to Plugin management options in Astute Manager

It is highly recommended to have the Astute Manager loaded in the menu bar/task bar at all times (or at least on a regular basis) to ensure that you are not inconvenienced with temporary license inactivity.

If you wish to transfer to a different computer, simply log out of the Astute Manager on the previous computer and log in on the new machine. The licensing will follow automatically. You can keep the plugins installed on both (or more) computers, but computers not actively logged into the Astute Manager will deactivate.

Astute Manager - Dashboard

A. Sections of Astute Manager

Navigate around Astute Manager using the sidebar options.

B. Avatar menu

See Avatar menu.

C. Dark mode/light mode button

D. What’s new?

Details of the latest updates for each plugin, including their version and improvements.

E. Latest News

This section contains information about updates and compatibility with new versions of Adobe Illustrator and operating systems.

F. Cookies

Customize cookie preferences. Users can accept all or configure them as needed.

Astute Manager Cookie Settings

This section allows the installation and management of your Astute Graphics Plugins for Adobe Illustrator. Users of the free service will have 4 free plugins to use, and subscription customers will have access to the full suite.

The Astute Library section of the Astute Manager allows you to manage the following:

a) Texture packs

b) Brush sets

c) Graphic Styles

d) Profile packs

e) Workspaces

⚠️ IMPORTANT

Assets provided through the Astute Library, such as Von Glitschka’s Brush Packs or the Vintage Text Effect Graphic Styles, are uploaded by Astute Graphics and:

• Do not count toward your personal cloud storage allowance.

• Do not appear in your User tab, as they can be redownloaded at any time from the Asset Library.

However, if these files have been previously installed on your system, the Astute Manager may treat newly downloaded copies as User files if it can’t match them to the originals. This can result in duplicate files being saved in your user folder, even though they’re technically the same assets.

For further information see:
Why do I have duplicate files in Astute Manager

The Asset Manager is used to back up all of your personal settings and preferences.

Astute Graphics plugins for Adobe Illustrator offer team licensing options for both the Plugins and the Astute Manager Pro services. For more information on this please see:

• Plugin Teams

• Astute Manager Pro Teams

Note that Plugin Teams and Astute Manager Pro Teams are separate services. Therefore, it is possible to be part of a Plugin Team independently of an Astute Manager Pro Team, and vice versa.

This section provides options for learning via our extensive written and video tutorials, links to our extensive documentation, and a contact link should you have any questions.

Astute Manager Quit button.

In the event of any problems quitting, please see:

• Quitting and force quitting the Astute Manager on Windows

• Quitting and Force Quitting the Astute Manager on macOS

Astute Manager - Avatar Menu

Clicking on the avatar image provides access to:

1. My Account

Manage your account details such as email address and two-factor authentication login. (See: Avatar Menu: My Account).

2. Billing

Manage your subscription and update your payment details. (See: Avatar Menu: Billing).

3. Settings

Change the settings of your Astute Manager application, including which folder your plugins are saved into and error reporting. (See: Avatar Menu: Settings).

4. Logout

Option to log out of the Astute Manager.

Asset Manager - Illustrator

1. Your user settings

2. Team Settings

3. Illustrator Preferences back up and restore function

4. Select the Illustrator version that you’re backing up/restoring

5. Language setting

6. Brief guide to functions of this page

By navigating to 4) Asset Manager > 4a) Illustrator, you can easily and quickly back up your Illustrator Preferences and  personal Illustrator assets at the click of a button. This feature allows you to backup and restore assets and settings used regularly within Illustrator. It is ideal for restoring Illustrator's Preferences, which can be a common requirement, plus syncing your Illustrator setup on other computers, including Workspaces (your panel layout) and Keyboard Shortcuts.

Quick asset installation

As well as backing up your assets, you can use this feature to quickly install downloaded assets directly into Illustrator. For example, drag-and-drop Swatch .ase files onto the Swatches tile and confirm with the Create button.

The following can all be saved/backed up:

• Illustrator Preferences

• Keyboard Shortcuts

• Workspaces

• Toolbars

• Brushes

• Graphic Styles

• Swatches

• Symbols

• Action Sets

To do so, you simply click the download button or drag the files over. If dragging, ensure you drag-and-drop the correct indicated file type.

Discovering the asset in Illustrator

The Astute Manager downloads and installs in the correct Illustrator asset location. They are not downloaded to your Downloads folder.

Downloaded and installed Brushes, Graphic Styles, Swatches and Symbols assets can all be discovered via the native related Illustrator panel’s bottom left Library button and navigating to the User Defined > … submenu. There is no need to quit and restart Illustrator to manage these assets.

There are no Adobe-defined folder locations for Illustrator Template Files and Action Sets. For these, it’s first necessary to specify which folder you wish to download to. Template files, for example, can be set via Template Files tile ••• submenu > Settings.

Features overview

Version of Illustrator
Select which locally installed version of Illustrator to manage.

Cloud upload button
Copy your local Illustrator asset to the Astute Manager cloud server.

Download button
Available for assets previously backed up to the cloud. Downloads and installs in the asset direct to the relevant Illustrator folder.

Asset tile ⋯ > Show Folder
Open the asset’s storage folder in Finder (macOS) or File Explorer (Windows) used by Illustrator. Manage, eg. delete or rename, assets directly in the folder.

Asset pack ⋯ > [menu]
Unlink or Delete the assets locally (on your computer) or cloud. Unlink forces the Astute Manager to remove the reference it has between the locally stored and cloud assets, ensuring that further changes on either asset won’t affect the other.

Asset Manager - Astute Graphics

1. Your user settings.

2. Team Settings.

3. Plugins for which you are able to back up and restore assets.

4. Brief guide to the functions of this page.
   

If you have an Astute Graphics plugin subscription, then by navigating to 4) Asset Manager > 4b) Astute Graphics, this feature allows you to backup and restore assets and settings associated with your installed plugins (plugins not installed will have their associated asset panels limited in functionality).

This feature is ideal for syncing your plugin setup on other computers. For example, you can back up your personal textures for the Texturino plugin, your Reprofile paths for the Reform plugin, and your saved manual artwork check configurations for VectorFirstAid.

Illustrator can remain running whilst your plugin assets are backed up and restored. The latest versions of our plugins work closely with the Astute Manager service to reflect any asset changes.

Quick backup

Simply click on the orange cloud upload button to backup the plugin’s assets (eg. textures, tool settings, profiles, etc.) to the Astute Manager cloud server.

Discovering the asset in Illustrator

Each installed Astute Graphics plugin will automatically update the relevant panel, menu or dialog when next displayed. If a modal dialog is open at the time the Astute Manager updates the asset on the local computer, the change will display after closing (and potentially re-opening) the modal dialog.

Features overview

Cloud upload button
Copy your local plugin asset to the Astute Manager cloud server.

Download button
Available for assets previously backed up to the cloud. Downloads and installs in the asset direct to the relevant plugin folder.

Asset tile ⋯ > Show Folder
Open the asset’s storage folder in Finder (macOS) or File Explorer (Windows) used by Illustrator. Manage, eg. delete or rename, assets directly in the folder.

Asset pack ⋯ > [menu]
Unlink or Delete the assets locally (on your computer) or cloud. Unlink forces the Astute Manager to remove the reference it has between the locally stored and cloud assets, ensuring that further changes on either asset won’t affect the other.

1. Workspaces

2. Guide to using

Workspaces allow you to work like a pro. They position Illustrator panels for a more efficient and creative environment.
If you have a plugin subscription, then with all plugins installed, Astute Graphics adds more than 30 new panels to Illustrator. So the Astute Graphics workspaces are provided as best suggestions from the team to help you get going quickly.

⚠️ It’s necessary to quit Illustrator before removing or adding Workspaces.

• To install - simply click on the orange Download button for each pack.

• To uninstall an installed pack - select the pack tile ⋯ > Delete local files menu entry.

Discovering the workspaces in Illustrator
When you restart Illustrator after installing a new workspace, you can access your workspaces via the Switch Workspace button at the very top right in the Illustrator window. In the resultant menu, you will see the newly installed workspaces listed at the top.

Feel free to use these suggested workspaces as a basis to modify and save.

The Astute Manager gives complete control over your Illustrator plugins. It allows you to install, update, learn more about the plugins and uninstall. The following section describes the different operations on offer.

Note that if trialling, your 7-day trial starts at the point of installing any premium plugin.

There is no longer any need to consider activation or deactivation on your machines as logging into or out of the Astute Manager performs that task. If you want to entirely uninstall your plugins from your system, please refer to this page.

Important

Before attempting to make changes to your plugin installations, you first need to quit all instances of Adobe Illustrator. Do not attempt to restart Illustrator while the Astute Manager is displaying its lower progress bar.

First-time user or "clean installation"

When first presented with the Astute Manager and prior to installing any plugins, you will see a window similar to this:

Astute Manager - Plugin Management pre-install

When installing, updating or uninstalling plugins, you are operating on a single installed version of Adobe Illustrator. The highlighted pull-down menu, above, determines which version you're modifying.

Once you have selected the version of Illustrator you wish to modify, the simplest option is to Install All. Clicking on this will start the download and installation process. A progress bar will appear at the bottom of the Astute Manager window.

Alternatively, if you only want to install select plugins, such as the free ones, you can use the appropriate individual Install buttons.

If you have previously installed plugins and updates become available, you may see an “Update/s” notification in the Illustrator Plugins section of the Astute Manager.

• You can update plugins individually by clicking on the Update button next to each plugin.

• Alternatively:
  You can either navigate to the Menu and select Update all plugins to update all plugins for the currently managed version of Adobe Illustrator.

• Or, you can navigate to the Update Plugins page by clicking on the menu entry in the left-hand menu and again, opt to update plugins individually. From here, it's possible to see what each update provides.

Please note that if you have more than one version of Illustrator installed, you'll need to update your plugins for each version.

The Astute Manager can be customized to how you want to use it.

Astute Manager - Locating the Settings Page within Astute Manager

To access the settings, click on the down facing arrow in the top right of the Astute Manager window, then click on Settings (as shown in the screenshot below):

Astute Manager - Navigating settings

The settings allow you to:

1. Control which instances of Illustrator are handled by default.

2. If required, send a bug report, including the log report.

3. Reset the AG Core plugin.

4. Check current application version number, opt to auto update, start up at Login and Show warning dialogs.

5. Reset default settings.

Which versions of Illustrator does Astute Manager support?

Each time the Astute Manager loads, it will detect all available instances of Adobe Illustrator present on your machine and automatically add access to newly installed major Illustrator versions when present.

It is possible however, to add or remove instances of Illustrator that are supported. At present, these can be any or all of:

• Illustrator 2021+ (v25.0+)

• Illustrator 2022+

• Illustrator 2023+

• Illustrator 2024+

• Illustrator 2025+

• Illustrator 2026+

For plugins, each of these versions and instances of Illustrator requires a different version of plugin due to internal changes. Astute Manager takes care of this headache for you.

You can read more about compatibility here.

What to do if you install or remove an instance of Illustrator

Upon changing which versions of Illustrator are installed on your machine, you'll need to let the Astute Manager know. Either quit and restart the Astute Manager or click on the Detect installed Adobe Illustrator versions (1) button found near the bottom of the settings window, followed by Save Custom Settings (2).

Astute Manager - Adobe Illustrator Version Settings

For advanced users: Setting the plugin folder locations manually

Astute Manager - Adobe Illustrator Version Settings

Due to the possibility of instances of Illustrator being present on removable drives (not advised!) or using Adobe's relatively unknown preference allowing users to set a custom plugins folder location, you can manually tell Astute Manager where you want a certain version of the plugins to be installed.

To do so, click on the default location text (3) and edit to suit.

Once changed, scroll down and click on the Save Customer Settings (2) button.

After these changes, all future plugin management in the Astute Manager will follow these settings. Note that changing these settings will not automatically remove existing plugin installations – this has to be performed manually.

To reset to default, click on the Set default paths (4) button and then Save Custom Settings (2).

By default, only plugin folders for detected versions of Adobe Illustrator are listed. If you wish to manually specify the installation and folder location of additional versions, disable the Enabled versions only (5) option to reveal all variants.

Please see the following articles for further advice:

• What is the difference between local files and cloud files?

• What happens if I unlink or delete files?

• For all other questions, please see Support General.

• For any issues, please see Troubleshooting.

• If you can't find the answer you're looking for, please contact us.