13 replies to this topic

[Hans van der Maarel]

I have an Illustrator (CS6) document with multiple artboards, which I'd like to export to PDF (1 artboard to 1 PDF). Does anybody have any suggestions as to how I can best do that? For now I only seem to be able to get everything into a single PDF, which is not what I want.

[sitesatlas]

Hi Hans,

I just save the file temporarily with a different name, then I delete all the artboards except the one I want to export before saving the file as a PDF. Ugly, I know, so I hope someone posts a better solution...

[David Deis]

With multiple art boards in a document you should be able to select a "Range" value from the Save A Copy dialog box with PDF as the selected format?

[Hans van der Maarel]

With multiple art boards in a document you should be able to select a "Range" value from the Save A Copy dialog box with PDF as the selected format?

Yes, but that creates a single PDF with all the artboards in that specified range as pages. I'd like to have each artboard exported as a single PDF by itself (sorry, should have been a bit more clear on that point). Since there's 20 of them, I'd prefer a bit of a streamlined/automated workflow.

[joelschlager]

Although I have not tried it myself this script and procedure from Matthew Ericson may help:

Export Illustrator Layers and/or Artboards as PNGs and PDFs

[joelschlager]

Addendum -

Just tried the process and it runs successfully. Save the text as a ".jsx" file and place within scripts directory (Adobe\Adobe Illustrator CS5\Presets\en_US\Scripts)

Running Windows 7 32-bit with Illustrator CS5.

Hope this helps!

[ELeFevre]

In this situation I have one art board that spans then entire project with a vector grid layer that delineates the individual pages as reference. To export the individual pages, I create a box that represents the export page size, position it over the area to be exported, convert it to an art board, delete the primary art board and export the page. If necessary I'll use the vector crop tool to delete any content outside of my AOI before export. Once the page exports simply "undo" and move on to the next page. It isn't a perfect process, but once you get going it's fast. Twenty pages wouldn't take long at all. I've done 300 pages in a couple of days. I should add that this is the process I use for exporting GeoPDFs from Mapublisher.

[Dennis McClendon]

This is the main reason I'm still stuck in FreeHand. I have lots of phone book maps where the whole region is drawn on one big artboard, and then "projected" onto smaller pages that overlap and have the index margins, etc.

One workaround that I sometimes use is to temporarily put some prominent gridlines over the map and export that. Using the big visible gridlines, place and crop the various areas into InDesign documents. Then export a version without the gridlines using the same name. When you open the InDesign documents, the links will automatically update and you can export PDFs very nicely.

[Jacques Gélinas]

Hans,

I did not read all the replies.
But this is what I do.

From the print menu select print Artboard range (select the artboard number) and print to a PDF driver (e.g. Acrobat or one that is freely available like CutePDF etc.)

Regards,

[Jacques Gélinas]

...so did you find a solution.

[Hans van der Maarel]

...so did you find a solution.

In the end, yes. Exported the range of artboards that I wanted to a PDF, then split that into individual pages using Acrobat.

[razornole]

Just figured this out, so I thought I would post so others have the answer.

File, Save As, (at the bottom is a check box) Use Artboards, then click the radial button Use Range.

Simple, but took me an hour to figure out.

kru

[Matthew Hampton]

I think there was some confusion that Hans clarified, but the information didn't propagate. Several replies mentioned using the Range check box but Hans states "I'd like to have each artboard exported as a single PDF by itself."

J. Schlager's solution seems the simplest/easiest. I've just recently stared using Artboards and aside from the easy learning curve it opens lots of possibilities. I wonder how big the performance hit is for multiple, large complex maps?

If anyone uses them routinely - I would be interested in tips/tricks and best practices for cartographers. Now to get that script running...

[razornole]

I think there was some confusion that Hans clarified, but the information didn't propagate. Several replies mentioned using the Range check box but Hans states "I'd like to have each artboard exported as a single PDF by itself."

J. Schlager's solution seems the simplest/easiest. I've just recently stared using Artboards and aside from the easy learning curve it opens lots of possibilities. I wonder how big the performance hit is for multiple, large complex maps?

If anyone uses them routinely - I would be interested in tips/tricks and best practices for cartographers. Now to get that script running...

I can't speak for the PDFs, I didn't try. I had one ai file with 23 artboards and I needed to save them as individual EPS files to send to the printer. I did notice that PDF was an option with the drop down menu. None the less, when I selected the range as 1-23 I got 23 individual eps files of each artboard. It kept the original name of the file and then put a dash 1, -2, etc all the way through 23 (its corresponding artboard number). It was as simple as clicking two boxes, can't get much easier.

kru

Edit: I just tried with PDF as the option and it didn't work. It does work with EPS files though.