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Use artboards greyed out

Forum|Forum|7 years ago
January 25, 2019
8 replies
12775 views

Trying to save as, so all layers can be saved as individual files on my machine.

Using latest version of Adobe Illustrator.

The "Use artboards" option though is greyed out. How do I enable it?

Using latest version of Windows 10 desktop machine.

saving artboards

This topic has been closed for replies.

Correct answer mmydip

I was having this same issue, but with actual Artboards and it was still greyed out. I finally tried Window>Asset Export, when this opens MOVE the panel somewhere else (I moved mine to the left side of the screen), otherwise it just kept closing on me as soon as I clicked on the art work to drag it. Select all "objects" or whatever you are dealing with and drag it onto the panel over the blue square in the Asset Export panel. This will create an asset for each object. Select the Format you want to save it as (PNG, JPG, SVG, PDF, or WebP). Then click on the icon to the left of Export at the bottom of the Asset Export panel to use the Export for Screens option, choose All Assets, choose where you would like to save it add any scaling you would like (I did not do this) and click Export Asset. After I did all of this I also realized I could have gone to File>Export As and THEN I would be able to click the checkbox for Use Artboards and it would have saved each one individually as well. I put both ways because I think it's always good to know more than one way to do something. This is using the latest version of AI as of 08/26/2023 on Windows 11. Hope this helps someone!

M

mmydipCorrect answer

Participant

I was having this same issue, but with actual Artboards and it was still greyed out. I finally tried Window>Asset Export, when this opens MOVE the panel somewhere else (I moved mine to the left side of the screen), otherwise it just kept closing on me as soon as I clicked on the art work to drag it. Select all "objects" or whatever you are dealing with and drag it onto the panel over the blue square in the Asset Export panel. This will create an asset for each object. Select the Format you want to save it as (PNG, JPG, SVG, PDF, or WebP). Then click on the icon to the left of Export at the bottom of the Asset Export panel to use the Export for Screens option, choose All Assets, choose where you would like to save it add any scaling you would like (I did not do this) and click Export Asset. After I did all of this I also realized I could have gone to File>Export As and THEN I would be able to click the checkbox for Use Artboards and it would have saved each one individually as well. I put both ways because I think it's always good to know more than one way to do something. This is using the latest version of AI as of 08/26/2023 on Windows 11. Hope this helps someone!

M

marymaru

Participant

I'm having the same issue. When trying to save one artboard out of six as its own separate ai file and use 'save as' or 'save a copy' the option to 'use artboards' and then select a range of artboards is grayed out. This means I have to take the extra steps to create a new ai document and copy and paste everything from the one artboard I want to create a separate ai file for into that new document. Or proceed with 'save as' for a complete set of artboards in the new file and then delete the artboards I don't need. Please, Adobe team, could you make this work so that it's easier? 🙏

Monika Gause

Community Expert

Please post feature request to https://illustrator.uservoice.com

They don't read this here.

M

marymaru

Participant

Okay, just posted my request on uservoice. Thanks for the suggestion.

A

Alex265197305uth

Participant

I'm having the same issue. I'm trying to save many layers to separate AI files and if anyone knows why this is grayed out please do tell.

Please don't suggest any alternate solution workaround or anywhere else I could do this, I just want to know if anyone knows the reason this isn't working.

Monika Gause

Community Expert

If there is only one artboard, then the option doesn't make any sense, so it's unavailable.

F

finlayg52844763Author

Participating Frequently

Ok appreciate all replies. But ultimately am no further forward....... will ask client to supply the assets within the .ai file separately to us before they were uploaded into Illustrator...... Struggle to believe there is no way to export all layers to file path on local machine other than creating/running a script.

Doug A Roberts

Community Expert

Is there something that prevents you running a script? I've found this script very useful:

Export Illustrator Layers to SVG files | Thomas Byrne

Ton Frederiks

Community Expert

Ha, we are talking about the same script

Ton Frederiks

Community Expert

There are scripts that can do that.

Google: layers to files illustrator

F

finlayg52844763Author

Participating Frequently

Appreciate the reply, I don't want a script, I just want a quick way to save all of the layers. Why is the "Use artboards" option greyed out?

Ton Frederiks

Community Expert

A script is the quickest way.

F

finlayg52844763Author

Participating Frequently

Perhaps the question should have been "How do you save all layers on local computer from a .ai file" ?

Monika Gause

Community Expert

Are they organized in layers? artboards? groups? Not at all?

Organizes in layers meaning that there is a main layer for every item.

F

finlayg52844763Author

Participating Frequently

Layers

F

finlayg52844763Author

Participating Frequently

Using Adobe Creative Cloud, and are on latest version of Illustrator. 23.0.1 (64-bit)

My main goal is to extract all of the individual layers and save to my machine at speed. I have been given the .ai file by client and don't have the individual assets/layers/files on my machine. That's all I want to do. Quick Google suggests the "use artboards" checkbox is quickest way to get them all?

Monika Gause

Community Expert

What do you want to do? Save all artboards to separate files?

It's in the second dialogbox

F

finlayg52844763Author

Participating Frequently

Yes, basically we want to save all of the assets/layers within a .ai file to my computer, ideally as .png files but not fussed on format. Can you outline step by step how we do that please?

I also don't have the option "export selection" showing either, which I understand is an option to do 1 by 1 for saving layers?

Monika Gause

Community Expert

If you need a PNG, then why use Save as AI?

Which version of Illustrator is this?

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