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Allow to Export/Save a PDF (range) without ALL artboards and stuff on canvas included with Preserve Illustrator Editing Capabilities enabled

When Export for Screens is used to export PDFs, it saves ALL artboards for every .pdf, creating very large files. This means I have to export the PDF, then reopen the PDF in Illustrator and manually delete the other artboards and other artwork and resave it so that the PDF only contains the artboard that should be in that file.

This is clearly not the intention of the feature.

It would actually be quicker to just copy and paste it into a new file, as it can take a lot of time if you have a large file with multiple artboards.

34 votes
Corrine shared this idea  ·   ·  Report…  ·  Admin →
How important is this to you?
Under Review  ·  Ashutosh Chaturvedi responded  · 

Asset export dialog does not have this option to export each file as a separate file it only has option on all artboards in one file, range of artboards or selected artboards in the dialog or the whole of document into one pdf file.
I am moving this request as a new feature request

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  • Anonymous commented  ·   ·  Report

    Not sure this is exactly the same issue and will post separately but when I have a multi art board file and the final for a printing vendor is only one page, when I use “save as pdf” and select all my specifics, including which page I want, the pdf it’s perfect. However, unless I deselect “preserve illustrator editing”, it will actually “ghost save “ ALL the artboards, so if my vendor opens in ai to check the file, they will get EVERY PAGE. I do not recall this happening before!

  • Kelly Carnes commented  ·   ·  Report

    Also having this problem. And I KNOW illustrator is capable of doing this because I always do it when I export logos for clients. It only started doing it this time, and it even does it with old files that I exported successfully in the past. This is completely insane. The only solution I can find is what someone else mentioned: open each file individually and delete the extras.

  • Jeff D commented  ·   ·  Report

    Same problem as described here: https://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/601447-illustrator-bugs/suggestions/32252662-export-for-screens-pdf-saves-all-artboards-in-fil (Dunno why this was marked closed)

    When I "Export for Screens" to PDF, intending for each artboard to be its own file, the exported PDFs still include all other artboard data.

    It's completely insane.

    To fix it, I have to manually remove the extra artboards from each individual PDF using Preview or Acrobat, or Illustrator. So tedious.

    Is anyone at Adobe ever held accountable for shipping such awful software?

  • Anonymous commented  ·   ·  Report

    I have this problem when I am exporting to PDF via "Save As"

    The solution for my issue is to uncheck "Preserve Illustrator Editing Capabilities" in the panel that pops up, so that the file is flattened, and only the visible layers are exported, and extra artboards are removed.

    I hope this helps you a little.

  • Corrine commented  ·   ·  Report

    Thanks Hitesh, I can confirm that not all the artboards are selected. Same problem happens regardless if I'm exporting a single artboard or many at once.

  • Hitesh Sharma commented  ·   ·  Report

    Hi Corrine,
    Thanks for sharing the information
    we would like to know more about the issue.
    could you please check if all artboards are not selected while exporting in the dialogue.

    Regards,
    Hitesh Sharma

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