1 Reply Latest reply: Aug 22, 2011 7:39 AM by Monika Gause RSS

    "PDF Modification Detected" dialog box

    Rhiannon Miller Community Member

      When I attempt to open certain PDFs in Illustrator (up to and including CS5.1), I get a dialog box with the title 'PDF Modification Detected' and the text 'This document has been modified outside of Adobe Illustrator.'

      Screen shot 2011-08-22 at 11.26.29.png

      I can't work out what it is about these PDFs that causes this dialog box to open (most PDFs don't cause it, including ones that have been edited using programs other than Illustrator). Discarding changes does indeed discard certain changes.

       

      The dialog box appears even where the file is opened using a script that suppresses dialogs. This together with the icon makes me think that this is a really old piece of code that's being triggered in a different way from most dialogs.  Does anyone have any idea of what causes this dialog to appear, and if there's any way to take it into account (e.g. setting a default answer) in scripting or batch processing?

        • 1. Re: "PDF Modification Detected" dialog box
          Monika Gause CommunityMVP

          It could be that this is just caused by out-of-sync timestamps on the file.

           

          But possibly you've got a bigger problem. PDFs generated by Illustrator may in fact contain two files: a PDF and an AI. WHen you open them in Illustrator, the AI will be edited (and the PDF will be updated when saving). When opening them in other software, the PDF part will be edited (and the AI won't be updated). Illustrator realizes this and warns you.

           

          You know your files, you'll have to find out what happened.