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Inspiring
January 18, 2025
Answered

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

  • January 18, 2025
  • 2 replies
  • 2801 views

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.

 

 

 

 

 

Correct answer 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.


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!

2 replies

Monika Gause
Community Expert
Community Expert
January 19, 2025

Which functions are you using to create the artwork?

Inspiring
January 19, 2025

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
Community Expert
Community Expert
January 23, 2025

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. 🙂


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.

Larry G. Schneider
Community Expert
Community Expert
January 19, 2025

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.

Inspiring
January 19, 2025

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
Community Expert
Community Expert
January 19, 2025

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