The 5GB AI file in question is a 4.2m x 1.8m print for a rooftop shop sign. It's comprised of 4 overlapping artboards so that the print is split into four panels to suit the size of the ACP sheets it will be stuck to.

The background is a linked PSD which is tiled about 16 times or something. Theres a layer with a few vectors (some have a drop shadow), the background layer and a print marks layer. This file is roughly 200mb and the PSD is 300mb.

In order to export to a file which will print in my windows based 'HP Flexi Print & Cut' printer software I have to either rasterize or flatten transparency effects, and embed any linked files. This makes it blow out to 5GB.

When i'm working with the file I either have the rasterized /embedded layers hidden and don't embed and linked files until the end, so its fine to work with. Flattening transparency can take a few saves before you get an exported print ready file with no random artifacts, so its quite annoying waiting 5 minutes between each one. It took about 15 minutes when I exported this particular file with 'separate AI file for each artboard' selected.

Please go ahead and let me know if there is a correct/efficient way for me to do this ;)

To avoid huge files and eggs in one basket...

(Pro Workflow)

If you know you are going to make raster intensive files...

Step One: Instead of a bunch of artboards make them separate files. PDF capabilities OFF. Always link images.

Step Two: If you need to send off you work to a client or to print; compile those Ai files in InDesign, each .AI file = Id Spread. I prefer to work in scale on a ledger size paper, but to each is own but do whatever your work requires

Step Two Point Five: Any time you update the .Ai files, the InDesign updates automatically.

Step Three: Export with desired quality.

Step Four: Send off to the customer and wonder why you never did this before.

I've done this for years and able to send 50+ page picture and graphics intensive PDFs (w/ each page made in AI) to customers. Doing that much work in a single file is incredibly slow, even for the best computers. More so, if your mega .Ai file gets corrupt you will be out of luck.

Bad design workflow is abundant and a million ways to skin a cat. Not sure if its ignorance but there so many people that unaware of their bad practices. Who cares anyway? As long as the end product is good? Well, some of us will be cranking out 5 jobs for your one. That's why you should care.

5GB AI file? Easy. Work in advertising.

Step 1: Make sure you have multiple artboards with several layouts that each include linked images
Step 2: Save with PDF compatibility enabled
Step 3: (Pro tip) take it a step further by disabling compression.

If you follow these steps, you'll be on your way to large AI files if you take advantage of Illustrator's features besides its original vector drawing tools.

My suggestion is to (always) disable PDF compatibility when saving working files unless you need to send an AI to someone who doesn't have Illustrator, which in that case it's probably best to send a PDF. The downside to this is that the file's preview is disabled. Of course, if you're files are typically small and you rarely use raster images in Illustrator, then none of this really applies.

How do you have a 5GB Illustrator file??? Do you have dozens of hi-res, uncompressed raster images embedded in it? Not gonna lie, I'm really curious how you managed to get an AI file *that* big. Are you even able to work with a file that large in Illustrator or does it just come to a stand still every time you try and scroll-zoom?

5GB .AI file? Files shouldn't be much more than lines, shades, transparencies, and LINKS. You're not doing Illustrator correctly/efficiently and you are putting all your eggs in one basket with one file for everything (never got why people do this.) Also, with large files, turn off PDF compatibility; It will reduce your file size by half.

I have a 2017 iMac with a 4.2ghz i7 cpu, 32GB of ram and SSD is formatted with APFS so a 5gb file can be written to the drive 40 seconds.

It is ridiculous to wait 5 minutes for a 5GB illustrator file to save, when there is 15GB of ram available and while it's saving, the CPU load never goes above 20%.

If Illustrator used the CPU efficiently then I would be happy to go back to a paid subscription,

We need that feature. Or just improve the CUDA support. We need faster Software and the Datas get more and more complex everyday!

I have the latest MacBook Pro 2018, i9 32GB RAM but Adobe Illustrator is really very very slow, if you compare it to Affinity Designer for example the Affinity Designer will smash Adobe Illustrator in; Opening files, Exporting, Navigating, Zooming in/out the list goes long and long, and Adobe charge us a lot of money more than any creative company, I am so desperate of Adobe, because it makes my workflow slower.

It's not profitable to release a fast software, think about this!

This....

Yes please. Adobe fix the performance problems please. just do a super stable and quick software and cut all extra **** and useless extra functions if they slow down everything. I've been working with Illustrator for years. (Working with high detailed illustrations mostly.) In the beginning everything went smooth. Till I updated to CC. Then things went downhill. In desperation I bought an new iMac Retina 27" late 2014 and this computer was totally useless with illustrator for over a year. Now it works better - but still - my old mid 2011 Imac works much better with illustrator. Not sure if its a Retina thing? I had the chance to beta test Affinity Designer for Ipad. And its clear it is still possible to make stable, super fast, vector softwares. Even for smaller companies like Serif its possible so this should be a piece of cake for a company like Adobe.

Anonymous, I'm not denying that at all - I just think his post is better suited in it's own thread. Just check the first post I left on this thread. I'm guessing the performance problems have to do with AI's postscript roots (I'm also guessing that this is also why it often does such a terrible job handling SVG files). I think they'll probably have to rewrite much of the program from the ground up. That said, it *would* be understandable that they've put this off except for the fact that AI is supposed to be a professional program and comes with a premium price tag. What really annoys me is seeing all of the new bells and whistles they add to AI in each release without actually addressing it's main problem.

John, while I agree with you 100%, Illustrator has major performance issues.. I can open the same pdf on multiple pdf editors but Illustrator is the only one that lags and shows beachballs constantly. Illustrator is currently multi processor aware so its not that.. (look at Activity Monitor.. it shows all cores being used), I believe that the code written is so bloated that its like trying to find a needle in a haystack every time you need to do something.. Better optimizations, rewriting parts at a time?? I think it needs a major cleanup.. Ive been using illustrator since version '88 so I do have experience in this matter.

While I'm not convinced that Mike's problem has to do specifically with Illustrator's lack of multi-threading, from what he's said it does sound like it does have something to do with Illustrator as it's not a problem he's experienced with other applications. From my own tests, it seems like this might be an issue specific to Macs or NAS drives; I'm running AI on Windows 10 and saving to networks storage (both on a machine running Windows 10 and another running Ubunutu 16.04) hasn't been an issue for me at all. Mike, since other users here have said they've experienced similar issues you should start a separate thread for your specific problem. It'll probably help bring it to Adobe's attention - whether they'll do anything about it is another matter....

We save without PDF content . files are tiny... Also. if I save to desktop, its almost instant.. save on network drive.. its slow..
Scratch set local... SSD
Work in outline mode and minimize link and layers pallet whenever possible to add a little speedup..

I work exclusively off a server in Illustrator and find AI to be slow IF files are saved with PDF preview ON. PDF preview will grow your filesize immensely if you embed or even link psd's in your file. Obviously, larger files take longer to load and save. Turn OFF PDF preview, and your filesize will shrink to a fraction of its size.

This may or may not be your issue, however, I'm constantly amazed how many people who've been working in Illustrator for years don't know this. And obviously, make sure your scratch disk is set to a local drive.

I build packaging - some of the boxes I build are very large, with very large image files - and don't have network issues as long as I keep PDF preview off my file saves. I also tend to work in Outline Mode most of the time as well - helps with performance.

But, I have to agree, Illustrator's performance is horrible.

Is that so? I guess then it is illustrator related, but honestly I could live with local save then lan backup if I could get other more significant problems of illustrator shorted out.

This is an Illustrator issue. Photoshop has no problems whatsoever. We run off a full 1GB network.. work of the server for everything.. NO issues except for Illustrators massive lag.. Its a common issue.. They even understand its an issue because they technically do not support working in Illustrator over a network. Ive been doing it for 15 years. And yes Ive checked our network speeds.. they are fine for everything but AI.. a 10 meg file shouldn't take 30 seconds to save. Period!! I can save a 1 GB Photoshop file in under 15 seconds on the same volume. so.. NO.. its not a network issue. Its the way Illustrator works.. we would like to have full compatibility with network usage.

Always work on the local disk, even if you have an HDD is always faster.
Working over a network is very likely to keep you at a 100Mbit rate (if for example you use for LAN the modem/router of your ISP).
Even if you have an ethernet hub at 1Gbps, it need to be good enough to deliver this 1Gbps on every port at doublex rate.

This is not an illustrator problem.

I work with a Synology NAS also, but if I have any files linked to the NAS while I'm working off a file - even if its a document I have saved to my desktop, It causes lag. Lately, I have found that if I package a project with everything local, but my NAS is plugged into my machine (and turned on), it drastically slows Illustrator (think spinning wheel 5 seconds, work 8 seconds, spinning wheel 5 seconds, etc.) Unfortunately the same issue on Indesign - though MUCH MUUUUCH worse. I use my wife's Imac, as that's much quicker than my super beefy Mac Pro