Need to open and edit a pdf in Illustrator that was saved without "Preserve editing capabilities."

Question

I created a complex illustration for a client in Illustrator and sent it to them as a pdf. For their purposes, there was no need to save it as anything larger than "smallest file size" which eliminated the "preserve editing capabilities in illustrator." This didn't seem like a big deal at the time, since I had the Illustrator file. Then my Mac crashed before I had backed the file up, and I lost everything.

My client now wants modifiactions to the illustration. I was able to retrieve the pdf attachment from my "sent" emails, but when I try to open it from Illustrator, *surprise surprise* I can't edit it. I can see that everything is still vector art, but I can't select any of it – all selection tools just display as the same weird pen. Is there ANY WAY to make the vectors in this file editable in Illustrator again? Any help is much appreciated!

Bobby Henderson · Answer

Have you looked how the imported PDF artwork is organized in the Layers palette? It's very likely the artwork is nested in multiple (or many) clipping masks and clipping groups. Depending on the nature of the artwork there may be many duplicate objects as unstroked and unpainted paths to serve as containers for clipping masks. Certain kinds of effects may be flattened.

I'd recommend using Astute Graphics' Vector First Aid plugin on a copy of the artwork. If you don't already subscribe to their plugin suite you download a free trial and then keep a few free plugins (such as AutoSavior) if you choose not to subscribe. Vector First Aid can automatically fix many of problems often present in imported PDF artwork. It won't fix everything. And you have to be careful about which issues you let it fix. The plugin can let you proceed on an item by item basis. Overall the plugin can save a great deal of time with fixing imported art from PDFs that are not edit-friendly.

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