Can I Split an Illustrator Design into Multiple Files When Exporting?

[Abdulla Anees]

Hello lovely Adobe people, 

I have an Illustrator Design for a commerical billboard which is 5800mm * 300mm 
I did it all in one go to ensure the design would be fluid.

Now I want to split the design into multiple parts when exporting because:
A. The file is very large (1.5gb) 

B. The printing shop says their machine won't handle something that big

So I want to split it into 5 parts whithout losing the fluidity of the design or maybe there is a way to crop PDF (I Decided to expost as PDF since it seems like it's giving the highest quality when exported if there's a better way please let me know)

[Tina_Irvine · Accepted solution]

Hi @Abdulla Anees,

You can create multiple artboards side by side to section your work. Next, draw a rectangle over the first artboard/section and create a clipping mask. This will hide everything else on the other artboards. Delete the other artboards and save this first section as a pdf (to make a smaller file, open the file later and remove the excess images). Undo the deletion of the other artboards and release your clipping mask. Create a clipping mask over your second section. Delete all other artboards, and save this second artboard (opening later, again, to remove excess images to decrease file size). Continue to do the same steps with the other 3 sections.

As long as you have your artboards butted up, you shouldn't have any issue with fluidity. The only thing you'll need to find out though, is if the printer requires bleed / if there needs to be any overlap. If so, you'll need to adjust each clipping mask and artboard BEFORE deleting anything from each individually saved press file.

Also, depending on how far back people will be viewing the billboard, you can lower the dpi quite a bit. For example, for a massive billboard that you view from a highway, you can go as low as 72 dpi if needed. Keep the dpi up as high as your file size and printer will allow, though.