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baileym13568074
Participant
July 10, 2023
Answered

Convert ai to pdf, scaling down the actual size in Mac Preview app

  • July 10, 2023
  • 1 reply
  • 493 views

Forgive me as I am very new to illustrator and not very tech savvy. But I have made a file in illustrator a size just under A0 paper size.
When I have converted this into a PDF, and view in actual size in Acrobat reader, it seems correct size.
But when I view it in Mac Preview/ try to print it with my local stationary shop, it's scaled it down 10x smaller.
I have another pdf document with a similar size, that when I open it in Mac Preview at actual size, it does show the correct size, so I assume this is something in the way I have saved the file from illustrator and not my preview app. 

Thank you


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Correct answer baileym13568074

weowwww I just made a new file with only 1 artboard and then copy and pasted my stuff over and it WORKED! thanks so much. someone on fiverr was trying to charge me like $80 to fix this, absolute charlatans, really appreciate your help as im new to this. 

1 reply

Doug A Roberts
Community Expert
Doug A RobertsCommunity Expert
Community Expert
July 10, 2023

Does the affected file contain more artboards? This would occur if it is a large canvas document, i.e. the canvas is over 227 inches in either dimension. This wouldn't happen if you create a single A0 file, but might if there are many artboards or if the artboard was created extremely large and scaled down to A0.

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    baileym13568074Author
    Participant
    July 10, 2023

    Hi Doug,
    Thanks so much for reply.
    I did start with a lot of artboards and then I deleted them at the end. Could this be the problem? 
    Now it just has 1 artboard 815mm by 1163mm which is the finished dimensions i want

    Doug A Roberts
    Community Expert
    Doug A RobertsCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    July 10, 2023

    Any time you create a document that requires over 227 inches to accommodate your artboard/artboards, Illustrator will create a large canvas document. This involves scaling everything 10x. Acrobat interprets this scaling correctly, but other PDF viewers may not.

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