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johnhornsbeeez
Participant
February 28, 2019
Question

Setting Units in Asset / Artboard Export

  • February 28, 2019
  • 2 replies
  • 441 views

Hello,

I've searched the forum with no luck on this. I often prefer to work in inches as my unit and have that set in the program preferences and new document preferences. But when I have a file with units set to inches and I export an asset or artboard as a pdf, when I reopen the pdf in AI, it defaults to points. I then have to go into the document setup menu and switch it to inches.

Any suggestions on how I can set up a flow where the asset / artboard exported to a pdf will retain the units setting as inches?

Thanks!

This topic has been closed for replies.

2 replies

Monika Gause
Community Expert
Monika GauseCommunity Expert
Community Expert
February 28, 2019

Units are saved in the document.

If there are no units in a document, then the preferences unit is used.

Do you save your PDF with "Illustrator ediatbility"? You should do so if you want to further edit it.

To set units, right-click the ruler

    Anna Lander
    Anna Lander
    Inspiring
    February 28, 2019

    Check please what are the global units in your Preferences (global settings are those which you set with an "empty" window, no documents open). I suspect that there are Points. Change the General units ato Inches, it must help.

    J
    johnhornsbeeezAuthor
    Participant
    March 1, 2019

    Thanks for chiming in. Current version of creative cloud. This particular issue isn't in the "save as pdf" file menu. It's in both the asset export panel and the export artboard panel. My global preferences are set to inches as well as the originating document preferences.

    I realize I could just copy and paste into a new document and "save as pdf". It's just a smoother flow for my brain to use the asset panel if I can work around this little issue.

    Related little bug I should mention is that when I open the pdf an AI and go to the Units in the doc preferences it does say inches, but the transform panel is displaying points. If I then switch the preferences to points, save that change and then reopen the units preferences and switch it back to inches, then it displays correctly as inches in the transform panel.

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