Issues with Clipping Masks When Opening InDesign PDFs in Illustrator

[Isabelle29595328wibm]

Good morning,

In my company's process we need to export a PDF from Indesign, then open it with Adobe Illustrator (I know, it's not optimal, but it is what it is). The problem is that many clipping masks are created (during export? when opening in Illustrator?) while they do not exist in InDesign. The file then opened in Illustrator is unusable because it takes a long time to delete them one by one. These masks appear randomly on very different elements on the page. Sometimes there are even full-page masks for a single microscopic element. It's really incomprehensible. I've tried all possible types of exports but nothing works and I'm lost! Could you help me?

Thank you so much

[jmlevy]

Hi @Isabelle29595328wibm 

[…] then open it with Adobe Illustrator (I know, it’s not optimal, but it is what it is)

Can I know the reason why you are doing this? You will always have issues.

[Isabelle29595328wibm]

Well my IT team uses Illustrator to "vectorize" evey element on the page to export it on Animate (our program uses Flash).

[BobLevine]

Unless you can explain why you're doing something that you already know is "not optimal" you're not likely to get any help at all. The only PDFs that you can reliably edit with Illustrator are PDFs created by Illustrator and saved with the capability to do it.

[Isabelle29595328wibm]

Well my IT team uses Illustrator to "vectorize" evey element on the page to export it on Animate (our intern program uses Flash).

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

Well my IT team uses Illustrator to "vectorize" evey element on the page to export it on Animate (our intern program uses Flash).

By @Isabelle29595328wibm

You mean texts? 

[BobLevine]

Why not just design it in Illustrator or Animate? I'm sorry but none of this makes any sense and to be perfectly honest, whatever you're seeing when you open InDesign generated PDFs in Illustrator is what you're going to get. There is nothing you can do from your end to change it.

[Willi Adelberger]

Illustrator is not a common PDF editor. Therefore you will always run into problems of different kind.

[Isabelle29595328wibm · Accepted solution]

Adobe support found a solution : to export in EPS type and not PDF. It worked well. Thanks to them !

[Willi Adelberger]

Are you aware that EPS shoud be avoided in modern times? Use PDF and AI. If you want to open in Illustrator without damage, go to Acrobat Pro, there mske outlines of all text. This is 1 command. Then you can open the file in Illustrator without damaging text. But EPS is not any solution in any way.

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

The OP said they were using Flash. I don't think "modern times" is a concern to them! 😜

[Isabelle29595328wibm]

I'm really sorry but i can't find how to make outline of all text in Acrobat. Can you explain how i can do it please ? Thank you 🙂

[JR Boulay]

A picture is worth 1000 words:

[Isabelle29595328wibm]

I'll try thanks !

[JR Boulay]

Well my IT team uses Illustrator to "vectorize" evey element on the page to export it on Animate (our program uses Flash).

This process is really old school, they should open the PDFs with Acrobat Pro to vectorize properly.