Illustrator 9's GOT A PROBLEM!!!

[shorudan]

HEy people,

I was doing some print jobs when the printer guys told me to convert my illustrator files to 8 so that they can open it on their side cos they didn't have 9.

It seems that 9 files when converted to 8 messes up the images real bad... especially when I have transparency in the images... the images get cut up and some fonts are rasterized and some are not...the whole job came out a mess.

Any one care to share their experience?

[CNO]

Transparency will not work in Illustrator 8 - It's a feature new to 9. If I'm not mistaken, Illustrator will attempt to blend colors in the areas you have made transparent when scaling down to other versions.

When you're sending out a file, it might be a good idea to make your fonts outlines anyway, just in case there is a problem with opening or accessing your fonts - the image will remain the same.

If you have a project that you absolutely need to look a certain way with transparency, etc. in place, and it won't be resized, you may just want to output a high-res rasterized version.

[GL]

I've had the same problem. My fonts were all converted to outlines, and some graphics were chopped up. Other problems I ran across in the past was when I was using v8.0 and saved them as an older version, the paragraphs were all separated into individual words.

[metamorphosis]

The Link Below is a tutorial that i have submitted to Flashkit. There are 60Tips and im sure you will find something to help you out.

http://www.flashkit.com/tutorials/Ti...38/index.shtml

[shorudan]

Yeah,

I checked with most printing houses and they're still using illustrator 8. That means that any work on transparency on 9 won't be seen the way it should be when the printers open it.

That sucks because if you had to convert your files to 87 compatible, the conversion messes up your images and sometimes creates half rasterised text and half outline text...which makes it look terrible.

The only way would be to uninstall 9 and use 8.

Or to export the whole project into a high res Tiff file, which STILL is not vector-based text, WHICH still means the text won't look as sharp as a perfectionist wants it to be.

Either way, I really feel that Adobe SHOULD have documented this problem because it is a common fact that most printer houses don't upgrade their softwares that fast (at least in my country, Spore) The conversion from 9 to 8 really sucks.

Ah well. Nothing's perfect. Not even me.

[mad clown]

Well, though this thread was going to die, I felt obliged to point out that Adobe did and does document this - whenever you try to save a file with transparency it warns you about what is going to happen. The fault would then lie more with the printer's unwillingness to progress to 9.0. Try 58k.com or someone like that who allows you to auction of your print jobs to people that can fulfill your needs (in this case, a version 9 printer).

and rasterize the graphics in the background, and leave your text as outlines (always, always create the outlines before sending it to press unless it's your press, because like aforementioned - they might not have the font and then you're screwed).