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Carleigh0101
Participant
September 28, 2025
Answered

Help retrieving a PDF from review link

  • September 28, 2025
  • 1 reply
  • 202 views

Hello everyone! I created an Adobe PDF file from an Illustrator document that crashed my illustrator and lost all my progress.

Fortunately, before it crashed, I created a review share link to send the file to others and it shows the full file that I worked on.

Is there any way to recover the file so I could download it from the share link? It's all there in the shared pdf but not in my AI file anymore since it crashed Illustrator. I checked the recovered and auto-save files in my files (on a mac) and the only recovered file was the one I see when I open the file in Illustrator. It's hours of progress I'm losing, any help would be appreciated thanks!

Correct answer creative explorer

@Carleigh0101 whoa, count your lucky stars! The best method to recover your work is to open the PDF portion of the shared file directly in Illustrator.  The easiest way to get an editable PDF copy is to open the share link in a web browser and look for a print/download option. Look for a Download icon, Print icon, or an option in the viewer to save the file. If you can't find a direct download button, try using your browser's Print to PDF function (though this may flatten some elements). The goal is to get the highest quality PDF possible. Alternatively, you can try opening the link in Adobe Acrobat Reader or Acrobat DC (if you have it). Acrobat often provides a more robust download/save option than the web viewer. When you have it, open the file and save it with a different name! 

1 reply

creative explorer
Community Expert
creative explorerCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
Community Expert
September 28, 2025

@Carleigh0101 whoa, count your lucky stars! The best method to recover your work is to open the PDF portion of the shared file directly in Illustrator.  The easiest way to get an editable PDF copy is to open the share link in a web browser and look for a print/download option. Look for a Download icon, Print icon, or an option in the viewer to save the file. If you can't find a direct download button, try using your browser's Print to PDF function (though this may flatten some elements). The goal is to get the highest quality PDF possible. Alternatively, you can try opening the link in Adobe Acrobat Reader or Acrobat DC (if you have it). Acrobat often provides a more robust download/save option than the web viewer. When you have it, open the file and save it with a different name! 

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