Linked Files in Illustrator Do Not Preserve Original Size

[godortneo]

Hi Adobe team,

I’m running into a frustrating issue with Place → Link in Illustrator. When I edit the original linked file, the object in my AI document does not keep its original size. Even using Relink doesn’t help — Illustrator scales or stretches the linked object according to the old document transform.

This makes working with linked files extremely inconvenient. It would be great if linked files could always insert and update at their original size without any manual resizing.

Please consider fixing this in a future update.

Thanks!

[Ton Frederiks]

"Illustrator scales or stretches the linked object according to the old document transform."

Do you mean you have scaled/transformed the image in Illustrator and don't want that when relinking?

Have a look at the options in the Links panel.

[godortneo]

Thanks for the reply!

No, I didn’t scale or transform the linked image manually. The issue is that when I update or relink the file, Illustrator changes its size automatically — it no longer matches the original dimensions of the source file.

It seems to happen when the artboard or resolution of the source file changes, even slightly. I’d like Illustrator to have an option to keep the link at the original (1:1) size of the updated file, not the old scaled transform from before.

[Ton Frederiks]

Does any of the options in the links panel do what you want?

[godortneo]

I’ve gathered all my .ai projects into one master file by dragging them in as links.

I use Edit Original to open and tweak each file — works great for keeping everything consistent.

But when I adjust the artboard size in the original file, the linked version in my master file changes scale.

That’s the problem I’m trying to solve.

[Anubhav M]

Hello @godortneo,

Thanks for reaching out. I tried replicating this behavior on my end, but could not. Would you mind confirming the version of the OS/Illustrator installed and sharing a link to a sample file(s) and a screen recording of your exact workflow and the problem, so I can check this with the team?

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Anubhav