14 replies to this topic

[ksfox]

Hello all,

My name is Kevin. I posted on here about ayear ago and have been following some since then. I thought I might pose a question to you all concerning a "File is damaged and could not be repaired' message. I am preparing a poster for the NACIS session next week. I was just about finished and I get this message. What I tried to do was copy some Illustrator maps onto the artboard (instead of just pdf's for quality) and the system froze, in a sense, and did not respond. THe file size of the poster is enormous 50,000Mb. I have a few scanned objects as well taking up much of the space.

I don't know if I will be able to retrieve it or if I should scrap it. Unfortunately I did not save a copy. I have tried to open it in Photoshop, Word, etc to try to salvage some. When I try to open it I still see the thumbnail version. Anyone know how to print this out?

I appreciate anyone's advice.

Thanks,
Kevin

[CHART]

The file obviously seems corrupted.
You might be out of luck.
I can only suggest that you try any application that can read and .ai file (if that is the saved format). For example Corel, and Marcomedia Freehand (you can download trials). Sometimes these applications bypass some file errors...

If you see a thumnail in other applications then the file is probably corrupted somewhere after the header.

Best of luck,

[Nick Springer]

Kevin,

You are not alone in these kinds of Illustrator problems. See my post at http://www.cartotalk...&...post&p=5822

Also you may want to check Adobe's user forums to see if there are other solutions: http://www.adobe.com...rums/index.html

I also moved this to the Software Applications forum.

[Mike H]

Kevin,

That sucks. I hope something works out for you ... One of the better habits I encourage people to do is copy the file (any file) before you begin to work on it. Do this every day on every file you touch: copy or Save As, whatever makes sense. I just add _v2, _v3, _v4 etc on the end which means version 1, 2, 3, etc.

That way, if anything goes terribly wrong, the most you lose is a days worth of work.

It can be as simple as inadvertantly deleting a layer or two, rescaling things wrong, or ending up with something you like less than whatever you had previously... or total loss due to corruption... but at least you can start fresh in the morning.

Sorry I don't have a magic answer.. a day late and a dollar short!

m.

[ELeFevre]

Kevin,

If you right click on the file in Explorer, can you print without the document opening in Illustrator?
If so, you could try printing the file as a Post script file (I think) using the (Print to File) option and then reopen the file in Illustrator? Several days ago I was told this works "sometimes" with a corrupt Illustrator file. Although it seems likely that at minimum you would need to be able to open the .ai file first. Most of the corrupt Illy files I encounter can still be opened, but not saved in any way. This might be worth a shot. You would also need to find the appropriate print driver at Adobe.

Maybe this approach will sound familiar to other forum members and they can help out. I could be way off- base on this one and have it completely wrong!

One last thing, I probably wouldn't spend too much time trying to get the file work. A better approach would be to dive-in and redo the poster. Consider it an opportunity to tweak the design and make it better (just trying to make you feel better)!

Erin

[ksfox]

I appreciate all your advice. Nothing seems to work, however. I thought I'd at least be able to print the thumbnail and have a copy of the text to work from (I tried in Word, but file size was beyond its capability.) I'll just start from scratch. Probably won't take as long the second time around. And, yes, saving each day should become a habit.
Again, thanks for the help.

Kevin

[miles]

I recently salvaged some work from a similar event by placing the .ai file into a new document.

[MapMedia]

Need more Illustrator CS (PC) advice - please.

I created an Arcmap poster layout with lots of labels, no raster layers, some emf symbols. Exported as 300 dpi AI file = 40 megs.

Illustrator starts loading it then dumps it without error message.

If I export just the major roads with annotation, the file is 7 megs, but illustartor throws "Not enough memory to open the illustration"

I have plenty of storage space, large pagefile setting, and 4 gigs physical ram. Even tried on fresh reboot.

I also switched the AIMAXVERTICES Arcmap export setting in the registry to the original size to see if this would help. Nope.

muchas gracias!

[frax]

I usually try to export things as the highest resolution possible, to get the full resolution of the GIS data - the thing is that the export function does some resampling/generalization, which is not so good. I can imagine that it has created some weird geometries in the process.

[MapMedia]

I usually export at 1500 dpi was was desperate to get it working so tried 300.
Funny thing, it worked today at 1500 dpi - only a 20 meg file and AI loaded it w/o a hitch.

Maybe the CPU was hot or something (ASU motherboard) - nothing else changed other than switching machine off for 9 hrs.

Thanks!

[Matthew Hampton]

I am curious if you changed the Output Image Quality (Resample Ratio) between the different exports. I have found that adjusting this slider produces interesting differences in exports. I think that's what Frax was hinting at.

[frax]

What does export/resampling 300dpi vectors mean? (in general)
That no nodes should be close than 300 dpi (irrelevant for bezier curves). That vectors should rasterize nicely to 300dpi? (using what algorithm?)

I think it is a odd thing to have there, and only really relevant for rasters, which you shouldn't really export as pdf or ai... (or... ?)

[MapMedia]

For data with lots of vertices (i.e. detailed coastline) and the map itself is framed at the 200 sq mile range, 300 dpi export creates chopped, stepped polylines in AI. Cranking up the dpi to 1500 creates a larger file, but when I zoom into the coastline in AI, all the lovely detail is there, 'un-molested'! From there, I can maintain complete control over how vertices are simplified.

Its like when you copy/paste an image from a PDF, you have to select, then zoom to 600%, copy to clipboard, then when you paste the image, it is at the 600% resolution, not the scaled down 75-100%.

[frax]

I think the resample of vectors that happens when you export is of the lowest quality, it is much better to resample the data in ArcMap/Toolbox (which has the additional advantage of keeping the topology) or in Illy, that would also give more control, and you would see what it looks like before it is wrapped up.

[MapMedia]

Frax - Are you saying to resample vectors (e.g. coastline) using arctoolbox, then export revised Arcmap layout (with resampled vectors) using AI export at >300 dpi?