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Saving Illustrator as PDF without the hidden layers

Forum|Forum|9 years ago
May 31, 2016
3 replies
20659 views

We have roughly 55cards that all have the exact same text. The titles and backgrounds differ among the cards. So I've made just one AI with the different backgrounds and all the text as one copy in a layer on top.

Now I can just hide each background layer and save as PDF. But even unchecking preserve editing capabilities, the file sizes let me know that it is still including the images and backgrounds for all the hidden layers. Doing a quick test and deleting all the hidden layers brings the file sizes done considerably.

I was under the impression that saving as a PDF without editing capabilities only saved what was needed for that particular PDF. It seems I was wrong. Do I just have to keep deleting the hidden layers for each copy?

problem

Correct answer Mike_Gondek10189183

Make separate layers for you copy versions, then hide the layer(s) you do not want to go into PDF, and use this settings. Though this says print layers, apples to making of PDFs also..

You also need to turn off Illustrator editing capabilities in the save dialog when making your pdf.

Mike_Gondek10189183

Correct answer

Community Expert

Make separate layers for you copy versions, then hide the layer(s) you do not want to go into PDF, and use this settings. Though this says print layers, apples to making of PDFs also..

You also need to turn off Illustrator editing capabilities in the save dialog when making your pdf.

S

sPretzel

Inspiring

Hi Mike

I see that you are printing but say that this solution applies to making a PDF too. If instead of Print (and therefore instead of Printing to PDF), I use Save As and then select Adobe PDF, there is no option to "Print to Visible Layers". When Saving As Adobe PDF, visible sublayers for which the top layer is hidden, still seem to find their way into the PDF, making the PDF much larger than it needs to be!

How can I Save As Adobe PDF and not have such sublayers find their way into the PDF? Is there a setting in the Save Adobe PDF popup menu?

Interestingly, even though the Illustrator hidden layer finds its way into PDF (but is still hidden there), I can't find the hidden layers in PDF. Only the increased size of the PDF indicates that extra information is included. How can I see what that extra information is in the PDF?

Possible alternatives:

One way is to hide all sublayers too in Illustrator. But that is counter-intuitive since the top layer is already hidden, thereby hiding the sublayers in Illustrator automatically.

Another way is to discard the additional unwanted information in Acrobat once the PDF is created (as stated by Ton), and resaving the PDF. I don't think that's a clean methodology.

Thanks.

D

d0nut247

Inspiring

just use the PDF/X1-a:2001 setting and it will nuke all the dead stuff and shrink the file by leaving those hidden bits out.

Ton Frederiks

Community Expert

It still leaves some stuff in.

If I save a file with 3 layers, 2 hidden I get 1,3 mb when saved as PDF/X-1a:2001.

If I delete the hidden layers and save the file as PDF/X-1a:2001 the file becomes 596 KB.

D

d0nut247

Inspiring

would using a custom flattener preset make a difference, like the pass4press 'job options' settings.?

Just because If I were doing it, I'd want to try and get it done without the extra step through acrobat if i could.

Ton Frederiks

Community Expert

You can do that in Acrobat.

Save the file with the hidden layers in Illustrator with "Create Acrobat Layers from Top-Level Layers" checked.

In Acrobat:

Save as other... > Optimized PDF and in the Discard User Data check > Discard hidden Layer content and flatten visible layers.

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