The Illustrator work
area is divided into four parts, the artboard, the scrach
area, the toolbox and several different floating pallets.
The artboard is your
primary workspace. The artboard is further divided into two sections
divided by a dotted rectangle. The imageable area is where your artwork
resides, and the non-imageable area, which should be thought of as
the margin of the page.
The scratch area does as the name implies. The area surrounding
the artboard is a place where you can feel free to "doodle", or
try out ideas. Images on the scratchboard do not appear in the
final drawing.
Note: Remember
to delete images on the scratchboard before making a final copy of
your artwork. Otherwise you are making your file larger without adding
anything to the image.