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Inspiring
Oct 17, 2024 3:08 PM UTC
Answered

Issues with Clipping Masks When Opening InDesign PDFs in Illustrator

Good morning,

 

In my company's process we need to export a PDF from Indesign, then open it with Adobe Illustrator (I know, it's not optimal, but it is what it is). The problem is that many clipping masks are created (during export? when opening in Illustrator?) while they do not exist in InDesign. The file then opened in Illustrator is unusable because it takes a long time to delete them one by one. These masks appear randomly on very different elements on the page. Sometimes there are even full-page masks for a single microscopic element. It's really incomprehensible. I've tried all possible types of exports but nothing works and I'm lost! Could you help me?

Thank you so much

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Isabelle29595328wibmCorrect answer
Inspiring
Oct 25, 2024 10:42 AM UTC

Adobe support found a solution : to export in EPS type and not PDF. It worked well. Thanks to them !

14 replies

JR Boulay
Community Expert
Community Expert
Oct 25, 2024 5:12 PM UTC

Well my IT team uses Illustrator to "vectorize" evey element on the page to export it on Animate (our program uses Flash).

This process is really old school, they should open the PDFs with Acrobat Pro to vectorize properly.

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Acrobate du PDF, InDesigner et Photoshopographe
Isabelle29595328wibmAuthorCorrect answer
Inspiring
Oct 25, 2024 10:42 AM UTC

Adobe support found a solution : to export in EPS type and not PDF. It worked well. Thanks to them !

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Willi Adelberger
Community Expert
Community Expert
Oct 25, 2024 1:21 PM UTC

Are you aware that EPS shoud be avoided in modern times? Use PDF and AI. If you want to open in Illustrator without damage, go to Acrobat Pro, there mske outlines of all text. This is 1 command. Then you can open the file in Illustrator without damaging text. But EPS is not any solution in any way.

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Dave Creamer of IDEAS
Community Expert
Community Expert
Oct 25, 2024 7:19 PM UTC

The OP said they were using Flash. I don't think "modern times" is a concern to them! 😜

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David Creamer: Community Expert (ACI and ACE 1995-2023)
Willi Adelberger
Community Expert
Community Expert
Oct 17, 2024 5:53 PM UTC

Illustrator is not a common PDF editor. Therefore you will always run into problems of different kind.

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BobLevine
Community Expert
Community Expert
Oct 17, 2024 3:28 PM UTC

Unless you can explain why you're doing something that you already know is "not optimal" you're not likely to get any help at all. The only PDFs that you can reliably edit with Illustrator are PDFs created by Illustrator and saved with the capability to do it.

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Inspiring
Oct 17, 2024 3:40 PM UTC

Well my IT team uses Illustrator to "vectorize" evey element on the page to export it on Animate (our intern program uses Flash).

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Robert at ID-Tasker
Legend
Oct 17, 2024 3:46 PM UTC
quote

Well my IT team uses Illustrator to "vectorize" evey element on the page to export it on Animate (our intern program uses Flash).


By @Isabelle29595328wibm


You mean texts? 

 

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jmlevy
Community Expert
Community Expert
Oct 17, 2024 3:22 PM UTC

Hi @Isabelle29595328wibm 

 

[…] then open it with Adobe Illustrator (I know, it’s not optimal, but it is what it is)

Can I know the reason why you are doing this? You will always have issues.

 

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Inspiring
Oct 17, 2024 3:37 PM UTC

Well my IT team uses Illustrator to "vectorize" evey element on the page to export it on Animate (our program uses Flash).

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