Illustrator, Save EPS but clip to artboard

[S.R.J.]

Hi, I'm quite new to illustrator, just starting using it on a course.

I have created some illustrations and have applied a heart clipping mask over the top of my larger image.  Imagine a "I HEART NY" type thing with the image showing through the heart shape.

Now I want to save this vector image as EPS file, but clip it to the artboard size, as I don't want to supply my FULL vector art that is hiding underneath the heart shape to the other person I'm sharing my file with (it is also much larger than the artboard).

Is this possible?

[Monika Gause]

There are a couple of hacks to try and achieve that (works in some cases, but not in others), but please tell us about the exact nature of the clipped artwoks.

[S.R.J.]

For example, I have drawn a scene with characters which is a full A4 size image.

I now want to provide a T Shirt company with a vector graphic of a heart cutout around one of the characters in the scene, then move the clipping mask around to 'cut out' several different characters.

I don't want the T Shirt company to be able to access the full A4 image and use it, I want them to only be able to access the portion required for the clipping mask heart.

Does that make sense?? It's about protecting the full sized image from unauthorised use.

[Monika Gause · Accepted solution]

What is interesting is not why you want to do this.

But what the artwork constists of technically.

And then also what kind of artwork you need to provide to the t-shirt folks. vector? raster? do they plot it? How do they print it? If they print direct to garment for instance, all you need to send them is a raster image in sufficient resolution. They don't even need an EPS.