Illustrator PDF color inconsistency with large artboards – Resolved by splitting them

Question

Hi everyone,We recently encountered an issue with Illustrator that we managed to resolve, but we still don't understand the technical cause.The problem:We have an Illustrator document containing several artboards, all with the exact same solid CMYK background color, intended for continuous vinyl printing.When exporting each artboard as a separate PDF, one of them consistently printed slightly lighter than the others, despite using identical colors and print settings.All PDFs were printed together using Mimaki RasterLink, with the same color profile, resolution, and settings.What we checked:	PDF compatibility: Acrobat 7 (PDF 1.6).			Color conversion: No Conversion.			Embedded source RGB and CMYK profiles.			We replaced the problematic background rectangle with one copied from an artboard that printed correctly, but the issue persisted.			The same artboard always printed lighter, regardless of when it was printed.	What solved it:The problematic artboard was the largest one, approximately 3 meters (9.8 feet) tall.After splitting it into smaller artboards, the color inconsistency disappeared.Our question:Why would this happen if Illustrator supports much larger document dimensions?We recently printed an 11 × 2.5 meter (36 × 8.2 feet) vector mural without any issues. That file was created at actual size, and Illustrator opened it directly with meters as the document units.Could this be related to how Illustrator processes PDFs based on artboard dimensions, the difference between standard and large canvas modes, or how the RIP interprets the exported files?We would really appreciate any technical explanation to help prevent this issue in future large-format printing projects.Thanks in advance!

Bobby Henderson · Answer

If one art board was printing different from the others it makes me wonder if some sort of stray appearance setting was applied to it or a layer related to it. Generally I don’t have any issues with PDF files saved from Illustrator that are under 10 feet in length. But when the art board is over 15 feet in length things start to get unstable; sometimes the saved PDF file may end up blank or arrive in the RIP application blank. I haven’t noticed any odd color shifts in large art boards.

For really large print jobs I’ll work in an obvious scale, such as 50% of actual size or 10% actual size. I don’t alter document rulers or units. I don’t want something lost in translation between Illustrator and the RIP application. I merely label the artwork for the scale being used. If I’m paneling something like a vehicle wrap I’ll create separate print panel PDF files at full size in Illustrator. Otherwise the artwork will get scaled up to full size within the RIP application (we’re mainly using Onyx Thrive, but have one flatbed printer driven by RasterLink Pro). I don’t really trust the large canvas mode in Illustrator for exports in other formats like PDF. The artwork will likely arrive in the RIP application at only 10% of actual size.

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