Illustrator 2025 and saving to CS3 "Not enough memory to open the illustration" error

[Tom Roylance]

Odd ball question here.

First a little background.  I build scale models as a hobby and use and old ALPS MD-1000 to create custom water slide decalse. ALPS are ideal because they use wax instead of ink to generate the images and not susptible to water damage. Plus they can print white!  ALPS printers are vinatge and requier an old Windows XP machine.

For years my workflow has been to create the art on my iMac with CC then save it back to CS3 to print using my old PC.  I never had an issue until earlier this week, when I updated to 2025 . I now received the error, "Not enough memory to open the illustration" on the PC.

I have tried:

• Restarting both machines - Recieve memory error

• Uninstalling Illustrator 2025 - Recieve memory error

• Reistalling Illustrator 2024 - Recieve memory error

•Saving back to CS2 - Recieve memory error

•Trashing preferences on both machines - Recieve memory error

• Saving as an .eps - Opens flat 

• Saving as a .pdf - Opens flat

An older file opens normally, so I am starting to think the error involves creating the art in Illustrator 2025 or perhaps some other backend 2025 update.  As a workaround, I can recreate the art on the old PC but that sucks.

I welcome any suggestions.

[Larry G. Schneider]

If AI2024 worked in your flow, then just keep a copy of it on your machine and use it to create the decals. You can have two different versions on your machine.

[Tom Roylance]

Thanks for the response. That was the first thing I tried. Going forward that may help. But I created this art in 2025 and no matter what I try, I receive the error.

[Larry G. Schneider]

Try saving out of 2025 as a legacy file, open in 2024 and resave as a regular .ai file. 

[Tom Roylance]

I reinstalled 2024, opened the file in 2025 and saved to legacy CC then opened in 2024 and saved back to CS3 - no love. I then tried creating a new file in 2024 (random shapes) and saving back to CS3 and got the error. I would blame my old PC but opens older art without issue. 2025 seems to have modified the art in a way that it now cannot be opened in CS3 - reguardless of which version saved the file.

[Larry G. Schneider]

But did you resave it as a 2024 compatible file and then try resaving that file as CS3 or as Monika suggested as a AI10 file?

[Monika Gause]

... also: do you save it PDF compatible? Maybe leave that out?

[Tom Roylance]

Tried with and without PDF compatability. Too bad - I had a good feeling about this. 😄

[Tom Roylance]

Still nothing. 2025 saved as Legacy CC. Opened in 2024. Saved in 2024. Opened again, saved back to CS3. Same error on the old PC. I did this with and without PDF compdability as Monika suggested.

[Monika Gause]

Which functions are you using to create the artwork?

[Tom Roylance]

Nothing too fancy. Straight vector art. It's then divided up and each piece of art is placed on an individual layer. I'm creating color seps that the ALPS needs to create the final color decals. See attached.

[Monika Gause]

Thank you. What happens when you save this to version 10?

[Tom Roylance]

Another good idea. 

CS3 opened the file but most of my pallets were MIA and the image was unediatable. The pencil with the slash was visible. Odd thing, my fly out panels were visible after I hit the tab key. See attached.

[Monika Gause]

What does the Layers panel tell you about editibility?

[Tom Roylance]

Good news! While reviewing older art, I noticed my panels were missing there too. That's wasn't right and so I reset my workspace and they appreaed. Anyhow, the .ai file saved back to version 10 seems to be working. Going forward, I will save back to 10. Thanks to everyone who took the time to help - especially Monika. 

I'm curious, why would a file saved back to 10 open and one saved to CS3 not? Inquiering minds want to know. 🙂

[Monika Gause]

I'm glad you could solve it.

The way Illustrator saves files has been changed a couple of times. In version 8 and then in version CS and in version 2020.  But I do not know specifically what Illustrator 2025 does differently then 2024 when saving back to CS3. It's pretty mysterious.

[Tom Roylance · Accepted solution]

Resetting the workspace resurected the panels! 😄 I wasn't able to modify the art because the layer was locked - somehing I didn't realize/forgot without the panels. Saving back to 10 did the trick! I will update my workflow moving forward. Thanks all!