Illustrator file saved as pdf is totally white

[Ilse50B6]

I saved the design of the frontpage of a calender made in Illustrator (with all 12 illustrator 'month' designs placed in this file) as a pdf.  The saved pdf however is totally white!  Nothing of my design shows on it.

Anybody has an idea of why this happens?

Thanks in advance for your reply.

[Monika Gause]

Is there still content in the AI file?

Are the layers set to print?

[Ilse50B6]

yes, the content is still in the AI file.

Where can I see that my layers are set to print?

[Monika Gause]

That information is in the Layers panel.

[Ilse50B6]

Thank you 🙂 but indeed, they are set to print.  It is however not when I print that I see all white.  It is the pdf file itself.  The content is totally white when I doubleclick to open; there is nothing of the original file to see when I open the pdf like that or when I open it in Illustrator.

[Monika Gause · Accepted solution]

Try and copy everything to a new file of the same size.

Does it still happen then?

[Ilse50B6]

No, it is fixed now! Thank you so much!

I still don't know what was the reason, but I'm really glad that it is fixed 🙂

[Test Screen Name]

What size did you make the PDF? More than 5040mm/200 inches will break it.

[Ilse50B6]

it is only 303mm by 426mm 😞

[Mike_Gondek]

Is this a multiplage doucment, did you export the correct artbaord to pdf.

Where are you seeing this as white in Acorbat or Illustrator? Open in Illustraot rand do a Ctrl Y to see if any paths are in the file.

The questions about whether you laters are set print is valid, as there is a setting in Illustrator whie; ptiign called print layers.  et print layers to visible layers. 

I have many more suggestions but would be best to see a screenshot of your Illustrator file so we have more information about how this document is built before we make suggestions without seeing the file construct.

[Ilse50B6]

Thank you so much for your reply.  I got it fixed by copying it to a new file in Illustrator with same size.

I still don't know what I did wrong the first time, but I'm glad that it's fixed 🙂

[Monika Gause]

This kind of corruption rarely happens, but still happens.

Could be just one internally messed up object, or layer or multiple of them.

Glad you could fix it.