[aprilcarter]

Dealing with Bugs in Adobe Illustrator 10

With Mac OS X, I have all of the most current versions of applications. There is a weird set of problems on Illustrator 10, and I thought I'd at least offer a heads up and work-around suggestions, since the Adobe folks haven't figured it out yet.

Especially when working with a complicated file (placed images, transparency, masks, etc.), if you save as an EPS and try to save over it, sometimes (but not always) the error "File cannot be saved. Illustration is busy or in use." will pop-up.

I have been working with someone at Adobe to find a cause and solution, and all that's been pinpointed is that it doesn't happen with AI files... only with EPS files (at least for me). If all of the data is selected and pasted into a new document and saved as an EPS, the error doesn't show, but the problems with that are left-behind guides and all of the copied data ending up in one layer.

Until a solution is found, the easiest method for me for working around it is:

a) working in AI format
b) saving as EPS for placement
c) making changes to the original AI format
d) either throwing away EPS version and saving AI file as same-named EPS, or saving as EPS with new name

My folder then has the following items in it:
workfile_art.ai
workfile_art1.eps
workfile_art2.eps
workfile_art3.eps

Once it's determined what version is the final, the extraneous EPS files can be thrown away or put into an unsued art folder, and the AI file should be retained for any future alterations.

If anyone has other suggestions for workarounds or solutions, I'd like to hear them.

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April M. Carter offers designers and illustrators advice about successfully bridging the gap between art and commerce. She can be contacted at [email protected].

[designbc]

Hmmmm... Wierd
That's happening to me with Photoshop 7, but in PC. At work we use PeeCees and we are having this same probllem when saving TIFFS. At home, with the Mac, no problem so far.

[aprilcarter]

Interesting. I would like to know if there is a correlation between OS X and Adobe in general... I didn't get into it before, but sometimes PDF causes a problem, too. It appears that Illustrator sometimes confuses AI files with PDFs.

[godzookie2k]

erm... to fix the annoying as hell "modifier keys stop working" bug illustrator 10....restart your computer. (no, logging out wont help)


Yeah, not much, but its a frequent ill10 bug.

[Helvetica Neue]

Originally posted by godzookie2k:
erm... to fix the annoying as hell "modifier keys stop working" bug illustrator 10....restart your computer. (no, logging out wont help)


Yeah, not much, but its a frequent ill10 bug.

This Apple bug, which doesn't only affect Illustrator or Adobe apps, should have been fixed in the 10.2.5 update. If you're interested in the technical background for this Apple problem, there's stuff at http://apple.slashdot.org/apple/03/0...id=128&tid=179

[Corys]

One of the Illustrator patches fixed the problem of being able to overwrite files..

had something to do with the way in which illustrator was handling it's tmp files..

are you using 10.0.3

[rlorenc]

I have been having a similar but not identical problem with Illustrator v.10.0.3. The problems started to appear a little while after I updated to OS X v.10.2.5 but still persist in the recently-released v.10.2.6.

Here is my MacNN thread about my problem which involves the error message "Acrobat PDF File Format is having difficulties. Object level badly formatted":

http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.p...ht=illustrator

I have also posted at the Adobe user forums at this address:

http://www.adobeforums.com/cgi-bin/[email protected]/4

Thanks for any input you may have.