Editing Illustrator Templates HELP

[bradleys10]

Hey Adobe Community I have worked in illustrator a few times creating things and know my way around but today i am trying to use a template i got off of adobe stock. Whenever i open the template in illustrator i cant seem to edit anything or fully understand why the template looks like it does. This is the template i am trying to customize: https://stock.adobe.com/search?filters%5Bcontent_type%3Aphoto%5D=1&filters%5Bcontent_type%3Aillustra...

When i open it up all the pages are in like what looks like a preview state like it shows online instead of them being there individual pages. Whenever i click on a page it points to shadow. If i hide the shadow then it allows me to click on content inside that page but i cant edit text or anything. All the text has anchor points.

Here is a picture of what it looks like when i open up the template.

[Peru Bob]

I've moved this from the Using the Community forum (which is the forum for issues using the forums) to the Illustrator forum so that proper help can be offered.

[bradleys10]

Great I appreciate it!

[bradleys10]

Also my objective is to export this as a pdf so when my client opens it he just scrolls down for each page. I do not want it to export like in the screenshot with all the pages showing really small like a preview of the whole book.

[Monika Gause · Accepted solution]

Open the layer in the layers panel and check it out. Probably all the items are grouped or maybe they are even a clipping mask.

You have to set up the pages yourself unfortunately. Templates of this kind don't make a whole lot of sense,  because basically you have to do a lot of work. The text has been outlined, because that is usually one of the conditions when you make artwork for stock companies.

[bradleys10]

Do you have any suggestions where i can get clean user friendly templates for what im trying to achieve?

[Monika Gause]

For this kind of artwork I wouldn't not consider using Illustrator and go straight for InDesign templates.