This section of Multiple Artboards Tips and Tricks is about page tiling.
Q: Since Save As PDF dialog doesn’t have the functionality of creating page tiles, how would I create Multipage PDF for tiled output from Illustrator?
A: You can create a tiled multi-page PDF more easily and precisely from Illustrator CS4 using Multiple Artboards. In fact you’ll probably save a lot of time and effort this way. Suppose you are planning to create a poster of size 2000pts X 2000pts and want to create a PDF that will have the whole artwork spread over 4 pages. You need to create 4 Artboards each of size 1000pts X 1000 pts with some no space between them. Use the following steps for easy discoverability, do file->New and in the new document dialog enter “4 “ as Number of Artboards, enter “0” as Spacing, Width and Height value 1000pts each and press Ok, this operation will create four Artboards each of size 1000pts X 1000pts placed side by side. Now if you want to have 4 pages in PDF each of size 1000pts by 1000pts, choose File->Save As choose file format as PDF and press “Save”, you will have a PDF consisting of 4 pages
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Picture:showing how to save all your Artboards to Multipage PDF
You can also take complete control of overlap between tiles by setting the “space” between artboards as negative. For example you could create 4 artboards of 1010 x 1010 points and -20 points spacing.
But if you are a fan of page tiling and still want to follow the old route of going to the Print dialog, setting the Page Tiling on and so on, you can still print to PostScript file and distill the PostScript in Acrobat Distiller to obtain multipage PDF. Please remember that the Page Tiling option has been moved to General pane of Print dialog.
In case you have a large number of legacy files created from Illustrator and have Page Tiling enabled in those documents, we have provided a smart way to convert these Page Tiles to Artboards. Once these Page Tiles have been converted into Artboards, they can be easily saved to a Multipage PDF or printed using the Print dialog.
Whenever you will open a legacy file that has page tiling enabled you will receive “Convert to Artboard” dialog as shown.
Picture: showing how to convert the page tiles of legacy documents to Artboards in Illustrator CS4.
This dialog will help you to convert your old legacy tiled document to Multiple Artboards. To do this, just uncheck the “Legacy Artboard” option and check the “Page Tiles” option. You will get as many Artboards in the document as there were page tiles. These artboards would be of equal size & in sequence.
If you don’t want to use Multiple Artboards and want all of your tiles be present in the document, always check the “Legacy Artboard” option ON, and all other options off in the “Convert to Artboards” dialog.
Please comment if you still have doubts and need more information regarding these work flows.
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