Export PDF plot or Save Selection As -- big troubles with Illustrator

[AES]

Create a combined Plot/ListPlot in 6 using Show having some lines with
their Thickness[] increased, some points with their PointSize[]
increased.

Export plot as PDF or Select either the plot itself or the complete cell
and Save As Selection. Open saved file in Acrobat; it looks fine (though
document size is not what I want; it's just big enough to enclose the
plot, and I'd like letter size).

Open same file in Illustrator CS 11.0.0 on Mac (only way I know to
change document or artboard size of a PDF file). Plot looks horrible:
Line thicknesses are hugely thickened (though axes and frame seem OK);
point sizes, oddly, seem OK; text size for tick labelsseems shrunken.

Any idea what's happening here??? Seems fair to call this a bug --
somebody's not doing right by the PDF format. But, an Adobe bug or a
Wolfram bug?

[ragfield]

Post by AES
Create a combined Plot/ListPlot in 6 using Show having some lines with
their Thickness[] increased, some points with their PointSize[]
increased.
Export plot as PDF or Select either the plot itself or the complete cell
and Save As Selection. Open saved file in Acrobat; it looks fine (though
document size is not what I want; it's just big enough to enclose the
plot, and I'd like letter size).

Save Selection As > PDF will create a PDF file with a tight bounding
box around the selection. Save As > PDF will create a PDF file whose
size matches your selected paper size.

Post by AES
Open same file in Illustrator CS 11.0.0 on Mac (only way I know to
Line thicknesses are hugely thickened (though axes and frame seem OK);
point sizes, oddly, seem OK; text size for tick labelsseems shrunken.
Any idea what's happening here??? Seems fair to call this a bug --
somebody's not doing right by the PDF format. But, an Adobe bug or a
Wolfram bug?

Given that it looks correct in Acrobat, and given Illustrator's
history of bugs rendering perfectly valid EPS, I would guess this is
an Illustrator bug. You could also try viewing the file in Preview or
Ghostscript for more comparisons.

-Rob

[Bill Rowe]

Post by AES
Create a combined Plot/ListPlot in 6 using Show having some lines
with their Thickness[] increased, some points with their PointSize[]
increased.
Export plot as PDF or Select either the plot itself or the complete
cell and Save As Selection. Open saved file in Acrobat; it looks
fine (though document size is not what I want; it's just big enough
to enclose the plot, and I'd like letter size).
Open same file in Illustrator CS 11.0.0 on Mac (only way I know to
change document or artboard size of a PDF file). Plot looks
horrible: Line thicknesses are hugely thickened (though axes and
frame seem OK); point sizes, oddly, seem OK; text size for tick
labelsseems shrunken.
Any idea what's happening here??? Seems fair to call this a bug --
somebody's not doing right by the PDF format. But, an Adobe bug or
a Wolfram bug?

Well given two Adobe products treat the same file in different
ways from your description, I would say this is a problem with
Adobe rather than Wolfram. I don't have Illustrator to test this further.

But Illustrator is not the only way to change the size of a PDF
graphic on a Mac. Using the graphicx package in LaTeX you can
easily have the graphic display at any desired size after being
created by Mathematica.

Or if you prefer GUI software, there is GraphicConverter which
can open an modify a PDF file. While I have used
GraphicConverter to modify a PDF file, I have not tried to
change the size of the graphic using GraphicConverter. So, that
might not be possible with GraphicConverter.

I also don't think LaTeX and GraphicConverter are the only
alternatives to Adobe for manipulating PDF files on a Mac.

[AES]

Post by Bill Rowe

Post by AES
Any idea what's happening here??? Seems fair to call this a bug --
somebody's not doing right by the PDF format. But, an Adobe bug or
a Wolfram bug?

Well given two Adobe products treat the same file in different
ways from your description, I would say this is a problem with
Adobe rather than Wolfram. I don't have Illustrator to test this further.

Maybe, maybe not. I have used these two Adobe products jointly on many,
many graphics files, and they have always worked superbly together.
There could be some bad PDF code in the document at issue, and one
product manages to work around it while the other doesn't. (Two
different software apps should handle a properly formatted document the
same, but nothing says what either of them must do with a badly
formatted document.)

Post by Bill Rowe
But Illustrator is not the only way to change the size of a PDF
graphic on a Mac. Using the graphicx package in LaTeX you can
easily have the graphic display at any desired size after being
created by Mathematica.
Or if you prefer GUI software, there is GraphicConverter which
can open an modify a PDF file. While I have used
GraphicConverter to modify a PDF file, I have not tried to
change the size of the graphic using GraphicConverter. So, that
might not be possible with GraphicConverter.

I referred specifically to _artboard_ size. There is a File >> Document
Properties menu command in Illustrator which allows you to change the
artboard size of a PDF document (essentially, the size of the page
within which the PDF image content is located), without changing the
size of the image content itself. Similar distinction to "Canvas" and
"Image" size in Photoshop.

To best of my knowledge, all graphicx can do is display the entire
artboard or canvas, and allow you to change the magnification at which
it is viewed in your display. And maybe GC has a command to change
artboard size buried in it somewhere; I haven't seen it, but will have
to take a look.

[Steve Gray]

On Thu, 26 Jun 2008 08:43:39 +0000 (UTC), Bill Rowe

Post by AES
Create a combined Plot/ListPlot in 6 using Show having some lines
with their Thickness[] increased, some points with their PointSize[]
increased.
Export plot as PDF or Select either the plot itself or the complete
cell and Save As Selection. Open saved file in Acrobat; it looks
fine (though document size is not what I want; it's just big enough
to enclose the plot, and I'd like letter size).
Open same file in Illustrator CS 11.0.0 on Mac (only way I know to
change document or artboard size of a PDF file). Plot looks
horrible: Line thicknesses are hugely thickened (though axes and
frame seem OK); point sizes, oddly, seem OK; text size for tick
labelsseems shrunken.

[snip]

I tried to fix up for publication an image that Mathematica made with
Graphics3D. I wanted to add and change things that are hard or
impossible to do in Mathematica. It was a hopeless mess, with several thousand
vector elements. Then I realized that the lighting, shading, and
hidden element algorithms made the vector output extremely
complicated. I finally used a bitmap that I made with PrintScreen or
the equivalent, and traced over the whole thing (that is, made a new
drawing) with Corel Draw, which is similar to AI. It was
time-consuming and limited - good perspective effects are very
difficult to get this way - but I had no other choice that I know of.
Mathematica should have a Simple EPS output mode or the equivalent.

[guerom00]

=93Save As PDF=94 does not work well in Mathematica=85 With ContourPlot,
it's kind of unusable. Something as simple as a

ContourPlot[x^2 - y^2, {x, -10, 10}, {y, -10, 10},ColorFunction ->
"Rainbow"]

once exported in PDF (or any other vector format for that matter)
appears =93made of a multitude of small polygons=94 (hard to describe,
especially in english for me) I have to use a raster format for those
ContourPlot images=85

[W_Craig Carter]

Hello Steve,
I do this frequently and the following work-around works for me.

Save Selection As (EPS)

I import the EPS into a SVG drawing program (I use skencil) and then
edit over the top of the imported eps.

When saving the selection, I use options to turn off embedding of tiff
preview in the options.

The eps is device independent.

Hope this works for you.
WCC

Post by Steve Gray
I tried to fix up for publication an image that Mathematica made with
Graphics3D. I wanted to add and change things that are hard or
impossible to do in Mathematica. It was a hopeless mess, with several thousand
vector elements. Then I realized that the lighting, shading, and
hidden element algorithms made the vector output extremely
complicated. I finally used a bitmap that I made with PrintScreen or
the equivalent, and traced over the whole thing (that is, made a new
drawing) with Corel Draw, which is similar to AI. It was
time-consuming and limited - good perspective effects are very
difficult to get this way - but I had no other choice that I know of.
Mathematica should have a Simple EPS output mode or the equivalent.

[W_Craig Carter]

This work-around also works if one uses Export["file.eps",graphics,"EPS"]

Post by W_Craig Carter
Save Selection As (EPS)
I import the EPS into a SVG drawing program (I use skencil) and then
edit over the top of the imported eps.
The eps is device independent.

[l***@gmail.com]

Hi,
It is known that Adobe Illustrator has some troubles with importing
PDF files even if they are created by Adobe Distiller. As I know the
universal way for importing PDF in Illustrator does not exist at all!
There is the only universal way to import EMF vector graphics into
Illustrator that I have found after many hours of tries. It is really
working if you use the same versions of Illustrator and Distiller! The
way is:
1) Export vector graphics in EMF (or WMF) format
2) Place the EMF-graphics in a blank Microsoft Word document
3) Use Adobe Acrobat PDFMaker for Word plugin for producing PDF-file
(do not simply print Word document to Acrobat Distiller printer -
resulting PDF will not import in Illustrator without converting all
non-ANCII characters in curves!)
4) Import PDF in Illustrator the same version as Acrobat PDFMaker is.
It will be imported fine.

It is really annoying that the universal way for converting PDF-
graphics into another vector formats (e.g. EMF and even AI) does not
exist! In many cases there is no way at all for converting PDF to any
other vector format without loosing quality (converting fonts into
curves) or converting vector graphics into raster (e.g. EMF-file vill
be produced but it will contain only low-quality raster image, no any
vector graphics at all)!

If anyone know a way to convert PDF-file produced by Mathematica into
EMF or AI or CDR or other interchangeable vector format it will be
VERY MUCH appreciated if you will share you knowledge...

Post by AES
Create a combined Plot/ListPlot in 6 using Show having some lines with
their Thickness[] increased, some points with their PointSize[]
increased.
Export plot as PDF or Select either the plot itself or the complete cell
and Save As Selection. Open saved file in Acrobat; it looks fine (though
document size is not what I want; it's just big enough to enclose the
plot, and I'd like letter size).
Open same file in Illustrator CS 11.0.0 on Mac (only way I know to
Line thicknesses are hugely thickened (though axes and frame seem OK);
point sizes, oddly, seem OK; text size for tick labelsseems shrunken.
Any idea what's happening here??? Seems fair to call this a bug --
somebody's not doing right by the PDF format. But, an Adobe bug or a
Wolfram bug?

[AES]

Post by l***@gmail.com
Hi,
It is known that Adobe Illustrator has some troubles with importing
PDF files even if they are created by Adobe Distiller. As I know the
universal way for importing PDF in Illustrator does not exist at all!
There is the only universal way to import EMF vector graphics into
Illustrator that I have found after many hours of tries. It is really
. . . . . .
If anyone know a way to convert PDF-file produced by Mathematica into
EMF or AI or CDR or other interchangeable vector format it will be
VERY MUCH appreciated if you will share you knowledge...

I thought I had read somewhere, some time back, that PDF is now, in
recent versions of Illustrator, _the_ standard format for Illustrator,
and for working across all Adobe products; and in fact, here's a direct
quote from the Help in Illustrator CS 11:

"Adobe Illustrator has used Adobe PDF (Portable Document Format) as its
native file format for several versions . . . "

As stated in my original post, I don't know if the problem with opening
certain Mathematica-exported figures in Illustrator is a WRI bug in
writing the PDF file or an Adobe bug in reading it . . . but if I had to
bet on this, my money would be on a WRI bug.

[ragfield]

Post by AES
"Adobe Illustrator has used Adobe PDF (Portable Document Format) as its
native file format for several versions . . . "

Illustrator also used PostScript as its native file format for several
versions, yet it still has problems rendering certain PostScript.

Post by AES
As stated in my original post, I don't know if the problem with opening
certain Mathematica-exported figures in Illustrator is a WRI bug in
writing the PDF file or an Adobe bug in reading it . . . but if I had to
bet on this, my money would be on a WRI bug.

It's possible it is a WRI bug, but that's going to be hard to
determine without a specific example. I tried the following:

g1 = Plot[Sin[x], {x, 0, 1},
PlotStyle -> Directive[Red, Thickness[.03]]]

g2 = ListPlot[Table[{x, Sin[x]}, {x, 0, 1, .1}],
PlotStyle -> Directive[Blue, PointSize[.05]]]

g3 = Show[g1, g2]

When I exported the graphic to a PDF and opened it in Preview it
appeared identical to the graphic in Mathematica.

-Rob

[AES]

Post by ragfield
It's possible it is a WRI bug, but that's going to be hard to
g3 = Show[g1, g2]
When I exported the graphic to a PDF and opened it in Preview it
appeared identical to the graphic in Mathematica.

Here's a test file

<http://www.stanford.edu/~siegman/Test_plot.pdf>

I have one other user who confirms that it opens fine in Safari,
Preview, and Illustrator CS 13.0, but I still see the problem in
Illustrator CS 11. Looks like I may have to eat some crow from
my bet that it would be a WRI rather than an Adobe bug.

[Bill Rowe]

Post by AES

Post by AES
Any idea what's happening here??? Seems fair to call this a bug
-- somebody's not doing right by the PDF format. But, an Adobe
bug or a Wolfram bug?

Well given two Adobe products treat the same file in different ways
from your description, I would say this is a problem with Adobe
rather than Wolfram. I don't have Illustrator to test this further.

Maybe, maybe not. I have used these two Adobe products jointly on
many, many graphics files, and they have always worked superbly
together. There could be some bad PDF code in the document at issue,
and one product manages to work around it while the other
doesn't. (Two different software apps should handle a properly formatted
document the same, but nothing says what either of them must do with
a badly formatted document.)

Certainly there is no guarantees what any software will do when
opening a badly formatted document. One would hope the software
would at least give the user something that would clearly
indicate the software was encountering what it sees as a badly
formatted document.

But having said that, the ability for two software programs to
work well together written by the same company does not in any
way imply the results you are getting from opening PDF files
from a third are badly formatted or that the bug (assuming there
is one) is in the third program. Without access to the source
code of Illustrator, Acrobat, Mathematica and the problematic
file there is no way for me to know precisely the source of the
problem you are encountering.

Simple logic suggests if two or more software programs
independently created can deal correctly with the file, and one
program cannot, the likely source of the problem is the odd man
out. And from your description that is Illustrator. Note, this
reasoning is far from ironclad. But more times than not, the
program producing the odd result is the place to look for the
source of the problem.

[Andrzej Kozlowski]

I would also suggest looking at some Internet discussions of
Illustrator's PDF editing capabilities before claiming that WRI has
done something wrong (I am a little shocked that anyone would not do
this first). For example, there is an interesting statement here by
Dov Isaacs of Adobe Systems, posted in May of this year (i.e. not too
long ago).

http://printplanet.com/discuss/thread.jspa?threadID=2504&tstart=0

which I quote in full below. It seems to throw quite a lot of light on
this whole issue (and, of course, on the wider claim that one ought to
rely on outside tools like Illustrator for editing Mathematica
graphics).

Andrzej Kozlowski

Here is the quote:

---------------------------------------------------
On behalf of Adobe Systems Incorporated, I will advise you that Adobe
Illustrator is not, repeat not, repeat yet again not a general purpose
PDF file editor.

The only full PDF files that Adobe Illustrator can safely open are PDF
files saved from Adobe Illustrator itself using the save for
editability option.

Why? Adobe Illustrator operates in either CMYK or RGB and only one
specific color space per document. Thus, a color-managed PDF file with
more than one color space with opened in Illustrator would be ruined.
Also there are many PDF constructs that Illustrator knows nothing
about. At best, they are treated as foreign objects that cannot be
edited. And for text, Illustrator only "understands" particular
encodings. General PDF can lose text when opened in Illustrator.

Illustrator can often be safely used to modify specific, simple
graphic objects as the vector graphics touch-up tool editor, but not
much more.

Proceed at your own risk!

Dov Isaacs
---------------------------------------------------

Post by Bill Rowe

Post by AES

Post by AES
Any idea what's happening here??? Seems fair to call this a bug
-- somebody's not doing right by the PDF format. But, an Adobe
bug or a Wolfram bug?

Well given two Adobe products treat the same file in different ways
from your description, I would say this is a problem with Adobe
rather than Wolfram. I don't have Illustrator to test this further.

Maybe, maybe not. I have used these two Adobe products jointly on
many, many graphics files, and they have always worked superbly
together. There could be some bad PDF code in the document at issue,
and one product manages to work around it while the other
doesn't. (Two different software apps should handle a properly
formatted
document the same, but nothing says what either of them must do with
a badly formatted document.)

Certainly there is no guarantees what any software will do when
opening a badly formatted document. One would hope the software
would at least give the user something that would clearly
indicate the software was encountering what it sees as a badly
formatted document.
But having said that, the ability for two software programs to
work well together written by the same company does not in any
way imply the results you are getting from opening PDF files
from a third are badly formatted or that the bug (assuming there
is one) is in the third program. Without access to the source
code of Illustrator, Acrobat, Mathematica and the problematic
file there is no way for me to know precisely the source of the
problem you are encountering.
Simple logic suggests if two or more software programs
independently created can deal correctly with the file, and one
program cannot, the likely source of the problem is the odd man
out. And from your description that is Illustrator. Note, this
reasoning is far from ironclad. But more times than not, the
program producing the odd result is the place to look for the
source of the problem.