Expert: Amy - 5/23/2005

Question
I've got illustrator 9.0 and using a PC.  I'm just learning the ropes and picking things up reasonably quickly however all the documents I've created to date have been A4 or smaller.  I'm just starting work on a document that will be at least 4 x A4 pages.  I have increased the artboard size and set tiling in illustrator but how do I get it to save as multiple pages in PDF format.  At the moment when I save it to PDF it just saves 1 long page (2 x A4 on top of each other) and the other 2 'pages' are nowhere to be found!

Can you help please!

Answer
Hi Paula,

Well, if you don't have Adobe Acrobat Full Version complete with Distiller, I'm afraid there's no easy way to create a multiple page PDF from Illustrator.

See, with Acrobat installed, you simply print to a PDF generator and voila, a multiple page PDF (you set your document up correctly, by the way).

But the "Save As" command in Illustrator cannot create anything but one page... as you've found out.  A much-hated non-feature of Illustrator.

There are third party apps that you might want to try. Before I got Acrobat Professional, I used this one:
http://www.pdf995.com/

Warning, it took a while to get the hang of this software - the interface is a confusing printer driver setup with many pages of options - but it did work when I got it set up right.

Also, I wonder if you can still use Adobe's online PDF creator five times for free???? I'm not sure this is still valid, but:
Go to http://www.adobe.com/  

Click on the "Acrobat family" link on the main mage and then select "Create Adobe PDF Online" in the menu.  

You used to be able to do it for 5 times for free, for more than that, you need to sign up for $9.99 a month.

Good luck!
Amy