Opening .pdfs in Illustrator

[MJNC]

Hi PrintPlanet folk...
I have a job that I need to help estimate, and the designer has up picking up .pdf files from their website to work from. Unfortunately, when I open the .pdfs in Illustrator a few things happen;
1) The pages come up with an error that says some of the elements within the file are RGB, some CMYK; and Illustrator will only work in one color mode per file at a time. So I select CMYK, which leads to the possibility that what I end up with is not what the designer intended. Most designers for this kind of work (packaging) know this, and stick to CMYK while creating files;
2) Everything in the file is on one layer;
3) When I select some of the elements, Illustrator just sees a box with no color values and not the elements themselves. When deleted or moved the content (what appears on screen to be within the box boundary) disappears entirely, including pieces of background. Some shapes that appear in the “preview” mode are not even there in the “artwork” mode;
4) It appears to me that at some point these files were put through Adobe Acrobat to create the .pdfs, and that is what is causing most of the problems I’ve indicated above;
5) But, the client says that people pick up these .pdfs and use them for print all of the time;
6) I am telling them that we need are the original, layered Illustrator files that were initially used to generate the .pdfs. It makes sense that they are not available on their website; they don’t want anyone downloading their stuff and using it for anything else.

This is most of the email that I sent to our sales guy to spell it out for the client. But I am wondering, is it ME making mistakes here? Are there new Illustrator functions that I need to know about that result in such files?
PLEASE HELP! I am the only prepress person here, and I am supposed to know all of this stuff.
Thanks in Advance!
Peace to the Print Planet.
_mjnc

[WharfRat]

Do - "Command+D" and look at the document properties.
Was it made with Illustrator?
If not - I would not expect to edit it with Illustrator.

MSD

[MJNC]

Hi WharfRat;
Thanks for the speedy reply.
I open the .pdf and do command D like you said and the file creator is Adobe Graphics Manager. Is that why I cannot work with it?
thanks,
_mjnc

So I did a find on my desktop for Adobe Graphics Manager, and it came up with hundreds of files that are all .pdfs out of Illustrator that I created. Advise?

[Al Ferrari]

Could well be it. Adobe's official position on this is that Illustrator is NOT a general pdf editor.

Al

[MJNC]

Hi AlFerrari;
As I said below, all of the .pdfs that I create out of Illustrator came up in a Desktop find for Adobe Graphics Manager. I wonder if Adobe is just calling it that because it is not a general .pdf editor...? Still, this is a packaging job, similar to a salad dressing label. What other application would you use for that? And I do use Illustrator to sneak artwork from a lot of .pdfs.
Just don’t know what’s causing it all to turn into blocks of stuff. I’ve tried expanding stuff, looking for masks, etc.
Oh well, let me know if ya got anything else.
Thanks a bunch.
_mjnc

[ridety]

if u havent already, try opening in acrobat and save as an .eps....then open that in illy

[Dov Isaacs]

On behalf of Adobe ...

Adobe Illustrator is not, repeat is not, repeat yet again is not a general purpose PDF editor!!!!!

(To be honest, I do understand why some people think to the contrary. Some very misguided Adobe marketing folks over ten years ago wrongly trumpeted the alleged "fact" that PDF was Adobe Illustrator's native file format. In fact it isn't and never was. Illustrator's native file format is buried as private data inside what looks like a PDF file!!!)

The only PDF files that Adobe Illustrator can safely edit are PDF files that are created by the save as PDF feature of a version of Adobe Illustrator equal or less than the version you are editing with and the "preserve Illustrator Editing Capabilities" option was checked when the PDF file was created. When such PDF files are created, two copies of the content are put into the PDF file - the first copy is PDF content and the second content is "private Illustrator data" which represents the content as processed in Illustrator including layer information, swatches, group information, etc. When you open a PDF file in Adobe Illustrator, an attempt is made to find that private Illustrator data. That is what is safely opened in Illustrator. If that private Illustrator data does not exist, Adobe Illustrator attempts to interpret the PDF data and convert it into equivalent Illustrator objects. Not all PDF objects are part of the Illustrator imaging model and there are some incompatibilities. For example, with the exception of linked placed objects, every graphical object in a PDF file must be in the same color space. Thus, if your non-Illustrator PDF file has multiple color spaces, it will converted to only one color space. Folks, that is a very lossy operation! Likewise, character encodings may change and may be corrupted. And some objects in your non-Illustrator PDF may be significantly modified in ways you may not find acceptable and/or discarded.

Bottom line ... in an emergency, use of Illustrator to modify or extract PDF content may work, but it is definitely not something that is valid use in a generalized PDF print publishing workflow for examining or otherwise editing a PDF file. And if you ignore this advise, you will get what you justly deserve.

- Dov

[Dov Isaacs]

Nope, that isn't any better. See my earlier reply!

- Dov

[Jose Gonzales]

Hi WharfRat;
Thanks for the speedy reply.
I open the .pdf and do command D like you said and the file creator is Adobe Graphics Manager. Is that why I cannot work with it?
thanks,
_mjnc

So I did a find on my desktop for Adobe Graphics Manager, and it came up with hundreds of files that are all .pdfs out of Illustrator that I created. Advise?

What you actually need is a PDF editor to solve all of these problems. Just search for one who suits your budget/requirements.

[leetaylor]

On behalf of Adobe ...

Adobe Illustrator is not, repeat is not, repeat yet again is not a general purpose PDF editor!!!!!

(To be honest, I do understand why some people think to the contrary. Some very misguided Adobe marketing folks over ten years ago wrongly trumpeted the alleged "fact" that PDF was Adobe Illustrator's native file format. In fact it isn't and never was. Illustrator's native file format is buried as private data inside what looks like a PDF file!!!)

The only PDF files that Adobe Illustrator can safely edit are PDF files that are created by the save as PDF feature of a version of Adobe Illustrator equal or less than the version you are editing with and the "preserve Illustrator Editing Capabilities" option was checked when the PDF file was created. When such PDF files are created, two copies of the content are put into the PDF file - the first copy is PDF content and the second content is "private Illustrator data" which represents the content as processed in Illustrator including layer information, swatches, group information, etc. When you open a PDF file in Adobe Illustrator, an attempt is made to find that private Illustrator data. That is what is safely opened in Illustrator. If that private Illustrator data does not exist, Adobe Illustrator attempts to interpret the PDF data and convert it into equivalent Illustrator objects. Not all PDF objects are part of the Illustrator imaging model and there are some incompatibilities. For example, with the exception of linked placed objects, every graphical object in a PDF file must be in the same color space. Thus, if your non-Illustrator PDF file has multiple color spaces, it will converted to only one color space. Folks, that is a very lossy operation! Likewise, character encodings may change and may be corrupted. And some objects in your non-Illustrator PDF may be significantly modified in ways you may not find acceptable and/or discarded.

Bottom line ... in an emergency, use of Illustrator to modify or extract PDF content may work, but it is definitely not something that is valid use in a generalized PDF print publishing workflow for examining or otherwise editing a PDF file. And if you ignore this advise, you will get what you justly deserve.

- Dov

Spot On!!!