An AI 29.5 phenomena that continues to persist and be unresolved - Ballooning file sizes!

[SundayGladiator]

So this issue continues, for some unknown unsolved mystery ..

Say I have an AI file, it's got some CMYK photos that are embedded. I save it as a 'Press-ready' PDF, with 'Preserve Illustrator editing capabilities' checked. It saves out to a 11 meg PDF. Yay! Prefect size for emailing.

But wait.. oops.. I forgot i needed to edit a graphic in the AI file. So I go back to same AI file, change say a simple opacity on a graphic, do the EXACT SAME save as a Press-ready PDF, same settings as before, and now the PDF balloons to 297 megs!!!

Pardon my French, but wtf. Makes no sense. It's as if Illustrator thinks about it and says to me - sorry for my oversight on the first PDF save, it's actualy quadruple the size.. my bad.

Any and all insights appreciated.

And btw - I cannot share this file or screenshots w tech support here - it's proprietary. 🙂

[Monika Gause]

THe "simple opacity on a graphic", does that thing overlay the images?

[SundayGladiator]

Nope it does not. 

The fact is it can be ANY adjustment I make to the AI file when I go back to it, and re-save it as a PDF as before. Same settings. And size of PDF always triples or quadruples in size.

[Anubhav M]

Hello @SundayGladiator,

Would you mind sharing some more details, like the exact version of the OS/Illustrator, a public link to a sample file after uploading it to Dropbox/Google Drive/etc., and a screen recording of your workflow, the export settings used, and the problem (https://adobe.ly/3S4Q2Ol), so I can check this with the team?

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Anubhav

[SundayGladiator]

Thank you Anubhav for the reply!

As noted earlier I can't share the file/screen sequence for proprietary reasons. Therefore I would need to spend the time to recreate it with a non-descriptive generic file. Don't know when I can create that when I'm busy with creating my proprietary files. 🙂

That said – are you aware of this being an issue with other users? Or news to you.

Thank you!  

[Monika Gause]

They do not ask you to make the file available to the world. They just want to have access for the Illustrator engineers.

[SundayGladiator]

By nature of posting the file here in the community, which can also be found via Google searches, makes it available to the world.. yes. 🙂

Unless I'm missing something here - A special upload link for files that goes to this secret oracle of Adobe engineers? 

[Monika Gause]

You can send a DM with the link to a secret location. And then just post publicly that you did that.

[SundayGladiator]

That works, thank you for that suggestion!