Actions: Photoshop vs. Illustrator

Forum|Forum|9 years ago
April 6, 2017
2 replies
596 views

I am finding a WORLD of difference between the capabilities of Photoshop Actions vs. Illustrator Actions. In PS Actions I can select a layer by it's name. Imagine that!

Why are simple features like this not available in and Adobe sister program like Illustrator?

This topic has been closed for replies.

Mike_Gondek10189183

Community Expert

Yes Illustrator actions have not been as advanced as Photoshop actions for quite some time now.

I have been using an action to save, print, make a .pdf and close my file. For years I was annoyed by have to each time I restart Illustrator to change the playback settings to pause for 1 seconds between steps or else the action will crash. This setting is no abel to save so is very aggravating to forget to check this, and lose you work because you action would crash prior to saving. About 2 years ago I found that by inserting some stop commands in between action that happen really fast stopped the crashing.

In summary Illustrator actions have not received much attention in the last decade and they really need to be improved.

rcraigheadAuthor

Legend

Mike, thanks for the tip. I'll add it to my "Illustrator Workaround" list.

Mike_Gondek10189183

Community Expert

Glad to share as having actions work reliably saves me a lot of time. Adding the stops as shown resolved the crashing. I get pop ups, but would rather hit the return key than crash:

Action Purpose : save .ai file to record updates, print, and make a .pdf copy to send to client for approval.

Action Purpose : prepare file for release to printer. Find fonts is s safety check that all fonts are loaded prior to outlining. Unlock all layers so all type can be outlined.Overprint preview is to visually proof that no white type is set to overprint for example.

At turn of the millennium thought the crashes were happening cause the computers we slow, but a few years ago noticed this was happening more as computers got faster so flipped my theory and puts stops in between fast items rather than slow ones.

Doug A Roberts

Community Expert

i can't even imagine that, because it makes me a sad illustrator user.

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