Illustrator AI files opening as PDF in Illustrator

Even though they are saved as AI. On other computers it opens properly. The few files I can open, I can't select using the selection tool because of a clipping mask I cannot get rid of.

field,
You may try the following (you may have tried/done some of them already) and see whether it helps (the following is a general list of things you may try when the issue is not in a specific file; 3) and 4) are specifically aimed at possibly corrupt preferences):
1) Close down Illy and open again;
2) Restart the computer (you may do that up to 3 times);
3) Close down Illy and press Ctrl+Alt+Shift/Cmd+Option+Shift during startup (easy but irreversible);
4) Move the folder Other options (follow the link with that name) with Illy closed (more tedious but also more thorough and reversible);
5) Look through and try out the relevant among the Other options (follow the link with that name, Item 7) is a list of usual suspects among other applications that may disturb and confuse Illy, Item 15) applies to CC, CS6, and maybe CS5);
Even more seriously, you may:
6) Uninstall, run the Cleaner Tool (if you have CS3/CS4/CS5/CS6/CC), and reinstall.
http://www.adobe.com/support/contact/cscleanertool.html

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Error opening Adobe PDF in Illustrator

I'm getting the following message when I try to open a specific Adobe PDF file in Illustrator: "Could not open the file"
The details:
- I created the file yesterday in Illustrator and saved is as an Adobe PDF
- I opened the PDF in Illustrator this morning and have been working on it all day. The file started getting slow (i.e., objects moving slowly), so I saved the file and closed out. When I tried opening the file again in Illustrator, I got the message above.
- Other PDF files will open in Illustrator. The file itself will open in Adobe PDF and in Photoshop - just not in Illustrator. I also tried opening the file in Illustrator on a different computer, and that didn't work, either.
Is there any way to save this file (i.e., preserve all of the layers) and open it in Illustrator again?
Any help would be much appreciated!

Hi Monika,
Thanks for getting back to me. What do you mean by "save to networked or
removable media"? I'm working off a networked computer, but I'm saving to
the desktop, so I don't think that should be an issue, right?
Any ideas about what could have damaged the file? I can't think of anything
strange or different that I did. Is there any way at all to salvage the
file and be able to open it in Illustrator?
Thanks so much for your help,
Amanda

Opening Photoshop PDF in Illustrator problem

Hi,
I've got a problem with opening pdf file from photoshop in illustrator. I've got a psd file with a rasterized background (photo) and about 100 shape layers over it. I'm trying to save it as a photoshop pdf to keep the vector elements unflattened for use in illustrator. The saved pdf is about three times larger than the original psd file. Then I'm trying to open the pdf in illustrator but I get a message that illustrator can't preview it. It only shows the outline of the shapes. Do you know how can I save this pdf to be able to work on it in illustrator? or maybe some trick to copy all of the shapes at once from photoshop to illustrator with correct placement? Thank you in advance:)
Mark

Thanks a lot for your help guys. The option with opening psd file in illustrator works best:)
I've tried opening pdf before but it seems to work fine when there are just a few simple shapes.
@Mylenium: I didn't have different blending modes, only normal. One rasterized layer as background and about 100 shapes layers above. Most of them being text layers converted to shapes. Nothing too fancy:)
I've also thought that different opacities might be the problem but I've saved one pdf with different opacities and the other one with every layer at 100% opacity and both pdf files had exactly the same size and both couldn't be opened.
Thanks again and have a nice day,
Mark

Illustrator crashes when opening some PDFs

When opening some PDFs in Illustrator, Illustrator "Quits Unexpectedly"
It only occurs on one out of 15 of our Macs
I am running on all the latest updates both OS and Adobe
It is very intermittent
It only seems to do it across a SMB network share
If the file is copied to the desktop it works fine
If the file is outlined and accessed from the network share it works fine
If the file is moved to another folder on the same network share it seems to work fine
I have repaired all fonts and cleared all font caches
This has recently had a full clean (using adobe's clean script) and re-install of Illustrator because of updating issues, but we have other Macs which have had to go through this also.
I have a crash log also but it is too big to post here
Any ideas before I wipe the lot and start again?

It is not nonsense.
A pdf is supposed to be an end-format, not to be edited. Edits should always be done in the originating application, not in Illustrator. A native AI-file is not the same thing as a pdf. Editing pdfs in Illustrator can be a recipe for disaster and damage of the file-content.
The following is from Dov Isaacs at Adobe in teh Indesign mailinglist at Lassosoft:
"Adobe Illustrator is NOT, repeat NOT, repeat yet again NOT a general
purpose PDF (or EPS) editor. It cannot fully and properly edit PDF
(or EPS) files created any than by "save as" operations from the
equivalent or later version of Adobe Illustrator. Illustrator only
"knows" about PDF constructs that it itself generates. Other PDF
constructs may be modified or deleted without notice. Furthermore,
Illustrator does NOT support mixed color-space PDF files. And finally,
Illustrator does NOT make use of any fonts embedded in a PDF file. If
you "edit" a page of a PDF file in Illustrator, you must have the
same version of the same font on the Illustrator system as you have
on the system that creates the PDF.
We constant hear of problems in prepress due to misuse of Adobe
Illustrator as a PDF fixup program. You use Illustrator at your own
risk for this purpose which is absolutely not supported by
Adobe Systems Incorporated!
- Dov

I am trying to convert an Illustrator cs6 file to a PDF and every time I do it, I lose all text and images. Can someone provide some assistance? Thank you!

I am trying to convert an Illustrator cs6 file to a PDF and every time I do it, I lose all text and images. Can someone provide some assistance? Thank you!

It's always a good idea to supply platform and AI version info.
How are you "converting" the file? Are you choosing "Save As" and selecting PDF from the file format options? This will bring up additional save options. I would suggest "Illustrator Default" setting unless you have specific needs.

Pasting Illustrator native file from InDesign back into Illustrator

I created a logo for a client in Illustrator. The logo was placed into an InDesign file for a collateral piece. The printer made a few changes to my logo per the client's request, but did so directly in the InDesign document instead of the original Illustrator file. So, this is what I need to know:
Since the printer made the changes in the InDesign file instead of my original Illustrator document, I just want to make sure that it is fine to paste the logo back into Illustrator and use that as my logo file moving forward. I wasn't sure if that will cause any issues with the logo and if the proper way and better way would be to go back into my original Illustrator file and make those corrections myself in my native Illustrator file. I don't know if this even matters, but I just want to make sure I do this correctly. Thanks!

I think a lot depends on the nature of the logo. Use of transparency, effects and so on could really mess things up in a round trip.
If the logo was Placed in InDesign (rather than pasted in), I don't think there's much the printer can do to it directly - the changes were probably ID-specific, on top of the linked logo.
In any case, I would export the modified InDesign page to PDF, open the PDF in Illustrator and then try to use whatever I find there to modify my original logo art.

Is there a way to keep your original Illustrator EPS file open after saving it as a PDF?

After I create artwork in Illustrator, and save it as an EPS, I have to then save it as a PDF so I can email it to the customer for proofing/approval. The pain in the behind part is that once I save this EPS as a PDF, I have to close the PDF then reopen the original EPS to continue working on it/view it, whatever. I know in InDesign, once you save your EPS file as a PDF file, the original EPS file remains open. Is there a setting in Illustrator that will work the same way? And if not....Why not?!

Now can you to anything about bad drivers, inconsiderate people, telemarketing phone calls, bad hair days, etc.
HA I wish, let me know when you find a resolution to those problems.
Glad I could help

Text moving when opening a pdf in illustrator

I opened 2 separate hi res pdfs (the front and back of a postcard) in illustrator 5.1. The type on both sides had been outlined and we just relinked the background image on both sides after we did some color adjustments to it. The only type on the front was the name of the company and the headline. Both were white type in separate magenta bars. The type was centered both horizontally and vertically in each bar.
When I opened the front, the headline text moved from being centered horizontally on the pdf to EXACTLY flush right with the company name. There were no problems with the text moving on the back side.
We have been receving files from this client for several years and always make color adjustments due to the uncoated paper stock we print on and have never encountered this before. The original files that the supplied pdfs were made from were also created in illustrator 5.
Is this a known issue? If not, is it acrobat or illustrator problem.

Was the original PDF created in Illustrator? To find out, open the PDF in Acrobat and go to File> Properties, it should show you what program created the PDF. Illustrator is not a universal PDF editor. A safer work flow would be to use Edit Object in Acrobat to make your color corrections. If you decide to use Illustrator, go to Select> All text objects, I suspect there are some un-outlined and un-embedded type elements.
If the fonts are properly embedded, there is almost no reason to outline the type.

Why does text sometimes get garbled when pasting from Excel or opening a PDF in Illustrator?

Hi everyone,
This issue has puzzled me for some time. I've been creating charts in Excel (2008, and now 2011) and pasting them into my Illustrator document (CS5 on a Mac). Sometimes everything pastes perfectly, while other times all or some of the labels, titles, etc. are garbled.
Another strange thing is I can also select a chart in Excel and Save as Picture then chose PDF as the format. The resulting PDF looks exactly how it is supposed to, however when I open it with Illustrator for editing the same thing happens as with pasting.
I realize this issue doesn't involve Illustrator alone, but I figure I have a better chance on these forums than on some Excel forum. If anyone has any ideas to try I would be very happy to hear them!
Thanks very much,
Bern

It's mid-2013 here, this is the first result on Google for this stupid problem. The last comment basically focused on how there are no known solutions to this yet.
ADOBE: I WANT MY PDFs TO OPEN IN ILLUSTRATOR WITHOUT HAVING TO FIGURE OUT WHAT WENT WRONG IN THE ORIGINAL WORD DOC OR WHATEVER WAS USED TO OPEN THEM. IF PREVIEW CAN SEE THE FILE AS IT SHOULD BE SEEN, THEN YOU SHOULD HAVE THIS DOWN.
Why do we pay money to put up with this crap? For the amount we are giving you to use your software, you should be on top of these like flies on the stuff that flies like.
I have PDF docs that I need to open in Illustrator because - no doubt due to Adobe's greed - there is literally no other software that can edit the PDF meat. I don't get why InDesign cannot handle PDFs, and we are stuck with this "one page at a time" Illustrator BS. In any case, I need to open these PDFs, and I can't - because they all come out as garbage. I feel like this could be fixed by Adobe in like a week. But that's just not gonna happen, because they would rather spend all their time and resources thinking of new ways to take my money.
Clearly it's a fonts compatibility issue. Why can't we have a dialogue box with character encoding and font selection options when we try and open a PDF?

Opening a PDF in Illustrator

Hello.
If I open a PDF document I have been sent with Illustrator with a view to edit the document, will the file be a lower quality than if i were to edit the original Illustrator file?
Thank you

Raster images might indeed be lower quality, since when opening the PDF they will be embedded and thus converted into the documents color mode.
The document color mode is likely to be CMYK, but the images in the PDF might also be RGB. When converting RGB to CMYK, you will of course loose quality and depeding on your color management settings might well ruin the images.

Opening layered PDF in Illustrator CS2&3

I am currently experiencing problems when opening layered PDF files which have been exported from Esko Graphics Backstage 7.0. When opening files into illustrator CS2 or 3 on one mac it contains the original layers. However when opening on another mac it doesn't. I have been through all preferences and settings and matched them up on both macs but the problem still remains. The versions of Illustrator are exactly the same (12.0.1). The problem also doesn't seem to be Intel/Power PC related. Can any body help please?

Did you check to make sure Paste Remembers Layers was checked in the flyout for the layers menu?

Problem with fonts when opening a pdf in Illustrator

Hi all! I'm working on a pdf. I do NOT have the original. So I've found it's easier to open the pages in Illustrator, make edits, and resave as a pdf. The problem is that Illustrator is converting some text to outlines. It is saying I don't have the font, but I do. In fact, on the same page I'll have 4 lines... and some will be converted to outlines and some won't... and they are all the same font. Is there a way to tell Illustrator to NOT convert the font to outlines? I don't mind if it uses a substitute font... it's easy to go in and change the font to the right font. But I don't want the text converted to outlines. Thanks.
Julie
PS I'm using CS 4 on a Mac.

Thanks, Scott. But I'm not sure what you mean by "pretty standard." Are you saying this is, in fact, default behavior in AI 14?
I'm still at AI 12 (CS2), and "standard" behavior (when the font is not available) is for Illustrator to do a font substitution, not automatically convert the type to outlines.
Is this, perhaps, what the new 'Missing Glyph Protection' does in AI 14 (as Myle suggested in post #1)?
If, in fact, this is the new default behavior, I would hope that Illustrator provides a warning (and an option to not proceed) given the highly destructive nature of converting type to outlines.

Open Illustrator template file (open original) for editing?

I know InDesign has an "Open Original" option in the file open dialog box so you can open and edit an indesign template, but I don't see an equivalent in Illustrator.
how would i open the original AIT file so i can make changes straight to it withouth having to resave a new file?

Thanks for submitting this thread--I've been wondering the same thing.
Has anything changed at all in the three years since? I have about 600 templates to which I need to make a number of small edits, and it would save a lot of time to avoid navigating to the original template to save over it.
Thanks!

Can't adjust curves in file opened from pdf

I need to include several pages of pdfs in a book. The pdfs are scanned text documents, image only, with no security applied. When I open the pdf on my mac pro with photoshop cs6, I can make adjustments in the curves dialog, but when I close the dialog the adjustments disappear. The history pallette shows the action, but nothing happened. Also can make visible changes in a curves adjustment layer, but when I flatten the image the changes disappear. I've tried opening the pdf as grayscale, rgb, and cmyk; same result. I've also saved it in several different formats, then reopened it; same result. The file initially opens as a background layer with a locked symbol in the layers pallette. If I duplicate the layer and delete the background, the locked symbol disappears, but photoshop still won't accept changes made in the curves dialog. I tried it with cs4, and had a friend try the same things with on a pc; same result. Levels adjustment won't work, either. Can anyone tell me what's going on here?

My earlier reply was from my work login, capbooks, so the username is different. Sorry for the confusion.
After realizing why curves wouldn't work on this document, I figured out what led me astray in the first place: when I went to open the pdf page in photoshop, photoshop's import pdf dialog didn't give me the option of opening as a bitmap. The only mode choices are grayscale, rgb, cmyk, and lab.
Thanks again.

How can I choose a font besides Myriad Pro as default when opening existing PDFs in Illustrator?

I already know how to do this for new documents.
But I work with PDFs generated in AutoCAD.
When opening these files in Illustrator, the default font is always set to Myriad Pro.
How can I substitute my desired font for Myriad when opening EXISTING files, short of copy/pasting into a new file? That workaround is just as time-consuming as resetting the font every time I work on a new document.
Illustrator has to be referencing something when defaulting to this font. It seems unbelievable that this setting cannot be altered.
Any ideas out there?

We get autocad dies from a variety of sources, quite often the font is .txt which susbtitutes to myriad. I use find font to substitue myriad to arial.
Since no doucment is open, changing the New document profiles does not help to get rid of Myriad.
You can record an action for this and set a hot key. The action is pretty fast

Illustrator AI files opening as PDF in Illustrator

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