Preserve Illustrator Editing Capabilities no longer working since last 2 updates!

[Luke38678566vzli]

Usually when unticking this box when saving a pdf, the file size would greatly be reduced. A 1gb file down to 200mb ish.  Or a 50mb file down to 5mb meaning its easy to send to customer by email. This is no longer the case, it make zero difference to the size.

I'm having to use Illustrator 2024 to do this as the last update to 2025 stopped it working and 2026 doesnt work either.

Luke

[Doug A Roberts]

What do you see when opening the exported PDF in Illustrator? Is your layer structure still there, or is it comprised of clip groups?

[Luke38678566vzli]

Hi,

Compramised like it should be. Random groupings and other things.  All the layers are gone too. 

[Anubhav M]

Hello @Luke38678566vzli,

Thanks for reaching out. Could you share a link to a sample AI and PDF file along with screenshots of the export settings used after uploading it to a file-sharing service, so I can check it further with the team?

Looking forward to hearing from you.
Anubhav

[Luke38678566vzli]

Sorry for late reply, was away from work. Here are a couple of files.  These have 6 copies each, I would do around 100-120 for a batch.  The more copies the bigger the gap in file size.

Luke

[Luke38678566vzli]

12up

[Doug A Roberts]

Can you share a file with Illustrator content enabled to compare?

What PDF settings are you using?

[Luke38678566vzli]

Our files are quite private, ill see if i can make one, but as you see from this image, it does do something but not as much as before.  Then when i create a batch with 150 of this file its the same as a normal pdf on 2024.

[Monika Gause]

If "Save in background" is still turned on in the preferences, try and turn it off.

[Luke38678566vzli]

Ok just tried this on a batch and it seems to work! I'm going to try on other files just to make sure.  Thank you!!

[Luke38678566vzli]

Unfortunatly this hasn't worked, still getting 1.5gb files instead of 250mb.