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Placing Illustrator EPS Problem

May 12, 2012 3:03 PM

I am trying to import an 6.875 x 10.5 inch document created in Illustrator CS6, saved as an eps, into Indesign CS6. Here is the problem:

 

The file is lettering for a comic book, so the lettering is randomly occuring on the page. It doesn't spread to the borders of the

of the 6.875 x 10.5 inch page. When I go to place it into Indesign, it comes in cropped to the dimensions of where the actual

lettering fitted on the illustrator page. (for example, if I just had once caption box with text in the middle of the page that was

1x5 inches, the imported eps document will come in as a 1x5 inch eps file.)  The problem here is that I can't center it properly

without having to adjust each imported eps and line it up with the page. This is rather diffucult because it has to line up precisely.

I remember this being a problem in CS4 also, but I came to a solution and can't remember what it was.

 

So my question is, How do I get Indesign to recognize the Illustrator eps as a 6.875 x 10.5 inch document that I can just center

using the align tools? Not sure if it is something in illustrator I need to do.

 

Any help is greatly appreciated.  Thanks!

1087 Views   4 Replies   Latest reply: Peter Spier, May 13, 2012 4:32 AM
 
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  • Peter Spier
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    1. Peter Spier,
    May 12, 2012 3:12 PM   in reply to zmatheny
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    Show the import options when you place the artwork and choose a different crop option, probably media, artboard or crop box (hard to know without seeing the file).

     

    And there is absolutely no good reason to save as EPS for placing in ID. Native .ai files work even better.

     
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  • zmatheny
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    2. zmatheny,
    May 12, 2012 7:29 PM   in reply to Peter Spier
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    Problem is, when I go to "place" the file, the import options are only: Read embedded OPI..., Apply Photoshop clipping path, and a couple of Proxy Generation options. Nothing is mentioned about cropping. I need to use eps since I started the document this way and the client needs to swap out the files on their end. Thanks for the help.

     
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  • zmatheny
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    3. zmatheny,
    May 12, 2012 7:49 PM   in reply to zmatheny
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    One other thing. I used to be able to drag the file from "finder" on my mac, directly onto the ID document. It would then automatically place it there. Now when I do, there is the small preview box that comes up. I then have to double click to get the file to come in. Then it just crops it to the "artwork only", not the actually entire crop area. To top it off, once I get the file in, regardless of how, I can't use the align tools to get the file centered. This is really making my workflow counter productive. To have to "cnt + d" instead of just dragging and dropping the files and then using align tools to get everything centered is going to make putting a 200 page book a very long process. I have to be missing something here. I can't believe that these simple things would be removed from ID in the latest version.  Basically my work flow is this. Create an ID document and then drag and drop the "tiff" files of the art on one layer. Then doing to the same with the lettered eps files. The reason I don't just use the illustrator file is because when I save an Illustrator file that I simply add lettering on top of the artwork, it makes a 15mb piece of tiff artwork with the illustrator lettering into a 30mb file (if not larger). So I have to remove the art and then save it as an artless file, with just the lettering. I'd be more than happy to hear if anybody has a better way to do this. Illustrator is bloating my files. Once I separate the art and the lettering only files, I am working with the 15mb art and then 350kb eps file of the artwork, instead of working with a 30 plus mb Illustrator file. That starts to seriously make the file size of a 200 page book go up. Thanks

     
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  • Peter Spier
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    4. Peter Spier,
    May 13, 2012 4:32 AM   in reply to zmatheny
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    It's been so long since I placed an EPS file that I'd forgotten that you have no real options. That's another reason to use native files.

     

    Why is the client swapping out files?

     

    What, exactly isn't working about the alignment tools, and perhaps more pertinent, why use Illy for this at all? Is the lettering too complex to do in ID, i.e. not type?  

     

    Again, I don't see a need to save as EPS. I'm hardly an Illustrator expert, but if you feel the lettering should be done there, I would put the tiff on its own layer, add the lettering, and if you feel the file is too large, remove the tiff layer before saving as .ai. What about doing the lettering in Photoshop? Does it need to stay vector? Save as Photoshop PDF and place that in ID.

     

    As far as I am aware, there has been no change in the drag and drop behavior since CS5. You should get a loaded "Place Gun" cursor icon, and either click and drag to get a proportionally scaled image, or click and release to get 100%.

     
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