Expert: LizaL - 1/19/2005

Question

Hey Barry,

I have been working with the IT department on trying to make the PDF files so they can be changeg and or text removed or added. They have a full version off Accrobat. But between us we can not seem to make the editable PDF files. Now i am saveing them as PDF files from Illustrator.
Should i leave the text blank, or does the text need to inbeaded. Not sure which road to take on this one. Also just another quick question. I cant seem to create gradeant changes in Illustrator it only seem to be comeing up as a colour grade from black to gray to white . Tried a huge amount off times to change this. any help would to great, as always thanks again.
Cheers,
Barry.  

Answer
Hi Barry,

I would think that if the IT department is going to make changes to your documents, maybe you should leave the text areas blank. That way they can open the PDFs in Acrobat and add or delete the text as they see fit. I'm not sure why it's not working to make editable PDFs -- I'm able to take any PDF and open it in Illustrator and make changes, provided there's no editing restriction or protection on the PDF itself.

Make sure, when you save a file in Illustrator as a PDF, that you have File Compatibility with Acrobat 4.0 checked. That way, if their version of Acrobat is 4 or earlier, they can still open the file.

About embedding the fonts -- this will definitely make your file larger, but it can be a good thing. If the IT department doesn't have one of your fonts, it won't matter. When it's embedded, it's like the font is a graphic object, and no longer a font.

I'd think that if there are certain parts of the file that don't need to be changed, you might consider embedding the fonts. But if they're making changes, I'd just leave the fonts not embedded.

Now about creating a gradient in Illustrator -- check out the little movie I made. It's really pretty easy once you get the hang of it! All you do is open the Gradient palette, select either a radial or linear gradient, and you'll see a little bar that has the colors of the gradient lined up on it. These little squares are called "color stops." You can change the colors of these color stops, add or delete them, and/or move them around the bar they're on, in order to get the effect you want.

To change the color of a color stop, simply click on it to select it, then choose another color. To add a new color stop, click on the color stop bar. To delete a color, just drag the color stop away from the bar.

To save a gradient you've created, just drag its thumbnail from either the gradient palette, or the tool box, where your two big swatches are (like in Photoshop), and drag it into your Swatches palette.

Here's the movie:

http://little-works.com/all_experts/gradient.mov


Hope this helps, Barry!

Lisa