Saving your Illustrator files correctly

After installing the Adobe Creative Suite on a new MacPro and getting down to business on it, I noticed that a native Illustrator file (.ai) placed in my InDesign document was not displaying correctly. The first clue was that the transparency of the placed file wasn’t displaying at all in my InDesign document – that is to say, the artwork had a white bounding box around it. Fortunately, I remembered that I really hadn’t checked my Options in the Illustrator Save As dialog box when I saved the file. If you’re experiencing the same issue, it’s easily fixed. When you save your Illustrator file as an .ai file, make sure you have the Create PDF Compatible File box checked.

Related posts:

1. Adobe Illustrator file formats explained
2. Save time by dragging files to an empty frame in InDesign
3. Changing the default font in Illustrator CS
4. Saving your Adobe Workspaces (prefs and palette locations)
5. Duotone support in Adobe Illustrator