create an upside down artboard that prints to pdf right side up?

Matt,

In answer to this,

I had hoped that it might serve as plan A, because you can do it all without doing anything with Acrobat or InDesign just with the help of Illy (job description Adobe Illustrator); she can make some complicatated things simple, and she is always eager to help.

For my own part, knowing the background, I should never even consider other plans for a task like this.

Once again, this is a direct reply to your OP, to avoid its being hidden by the new forum software.

.

Matt,

Thank you for your clarification here,

The reply is here, simply to keep to avoid its being hidden.

How about something this based on a 2nd Artboard with artwork on different Layers together with 1st Artboard artwork, actual details depending on/adapted to the actual structure?

1 ) Create a nostroke nofill rectangle with the exact same size and position as the 2nd Artboard, unless you already have it, and have a possible page number as a simple number if not already,

2 ) Select all the 2nd Artboard artwork across Layers along with the rectangle/number from 1 ),

3 ) In the Select dropdown click Save Selection and give it a name (maybe 2nd Artboard),

4 ) Rotate the (2nd Artboard) selection,

5 ) Save a Copy as the PDF and use that for print that?

If you need to edit the 2nd Artboard artwork, you can just

6 ) Rotate the (2nd Artboard) selection back, edit, and rotate again.

Or would this be plan D or worse?

Whatever you do, remember to keep different(ly named) versions in different places to ensure you have backups to fall back on.

Hi ​@Matt_Bro Another option that I often use is to edit in Illustrator whichever way you want, and then place them all into Indesign and rotate them 180° as needed. When you edit the Illustrator files, they will update perfectly in Indesign, retaining their final printing orientation. Of course, this requires Indesign, which might be a deal breaker.

I also wrote a script (for myself, primarily) that just rotates the Illustrator view 180° (and back to normal if you run it again). It isn’t the best solution if you’re using arrow key nudging because it means everything is flipped—nudge down arrow key will move the selected item up on the screen (which is down on the page). You can download it from my GitHub repo.

—Mark

Matt,

Can you tell us the reason for plan A?

I would rotate the pages in the orientation you want them printed in Acrobat.