Save as PDF in Ai Automatically Turns the Document I'm Working on Into a pdf

[KGavalas94]

When saving Ai files as PDFs, Ai automatically converts my working document into a pdf — if I don't remember to resave it as an Ai file and just save and close the document, those changes I've been working on only edit the previously saved-out pdf and not the Ai file I was originally working on.
This is extremely frustrating — especially when I've selected the exported PDF to not be editable (to save space)

I've had this issue come up quite a few times in the past and has created unnecessary/major hiccups in my design process.

Is there any way to solve this in settings?

[Monika Gause]

That's the way "Save as" generally works.

Use "Save a Copy" instead.

[Jeff Witchel, ACI]

If you don't want to lose your work that was lost when you saved as a PDF, do a Save As and save the file as an AI. It will just replace the AI file with your updated work.