Known Participant

Question

When should I tick Create PDF Compatible File in Illustrator?

Forum|Forum|6 years ago
January 10, 2020
3 replies
21202 views

Hey guys, I saved my Ai file with Create Compatible File turned on and it wa slow to save and used a lot storage. My file has a lot placed pdf files and a lot vectors, I want to export a multiple pages pdf to be placed into indesign after I complete it, in this case I don’t need to to tick the create pdf compatible file right(I want to export as pdf so I can deselect all compressions)? If so, how do I untick the option and remove whatever it included to get such huge size?

{Renamed By MOD}

This topic has been closed for replies.

Jacob Bugge

Community Expert

Baby Yoda,

To untick, just use Save As (Shift+Ctrl/Cmd+S) and untick when you get to the box with the option.

From time to time, saving as PDF Compatible file has been crucial in rescuing at leastb part of the artwork in a corrupted AI document.

Which brings me to the following, beyond the question(s) in this thread:

It is always recommended to create backups with different names regularly, and to store backups in more than one place/way.

And also to save often.

If you have a CC subscription, saving files in your Creative Cloud Files folder will automatically create and keep versions up to 10 days.
https://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/using/crash-file-data-recovery.html
https://helpx.adobe.com/creative-cloud/help/sync-files.html
https://helpx.adobe.com/creative-cloud/help/versioning-faq.html

and here are some other suggestions,
https://forums.adobe.com/message/9328988#9328988

J

Jane5FA2

Participant

Hi guys,

Following the above - where is the setting to keep “Create compatible file” off as DEFAULT? Thanks! M

Rishabh_Tiwari

Legend

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out. Create PDF Compatible File option should be used if you want the Illustrator file to be compatible with other Adobe applications. It saves a PDF representation of the document in the Illustrator file. For more information, you can refer to this help article:

https://helpx.adobe.com/in/illustrator/using/saving-artwork.html

Regards

Rishabh

H

Hht tbAuthor

Known Participant

I see, yeah I want to add vectors now so still take time to edit, but when I done, I will export(in Ai called save as, not sure why) a multiple pages pdf file and place into indesign, so I won’t place the Ai file(or this is better?).

So how do I turn on and off st anytime? I already turned it on and saved, now how do I turn it off without save as a new file again?

H

Hht tbAuthor

Known Participant

Hey guys, I saved my large Ai file with that “Create compatible file” turned on and “compression” turned off, it make the save time extreme slow on my old hardware. I will export my Ai file as pdf to be placed into indesign once I complete it so I think right now turn on that option will just make unnecessary sluggish for me. So how do I turn that off and make my Ai file size smaller?

Monika Gause

Community Expert

If you want to place it in InDesign, you must check "PDF compatible". But you only need to do that the last moment bfore you place it. So as long as you just edit the file in Illustrator, you don't need to save it "PDF compatible". Only when you're finished in Illustrator and want to hand over to InDesign, you must check it.

H

Hht tbAuthor

Known Participant

I see, yeah I want to add vectors now so still take time to edit, but when I done, I will export(in Ai called save as, not sure why) a multiple pages pdf file and place into indesign, so I won’t place the Ai file(or this is better?).

So how do I turn on and off st anytime? I already turned it on and saved, now how do I turn it off without save as a new file again?

Sign up

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Sign in to Adobe Community

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Scanning file for viruses.

This file cannot be downloaded