I have a horrendously complex AI file - a vector map with roads, highways, textfields, etc. I don't need to make any edits other than messing with the scale of the document, but even that little thing all but kills my machine. Is there any sort of clean-up I can do that does not involve rasterizing layers?
have you tried turning off all the layers but the one you need to get your alignment right? That should help a little.
Another thought, make a jpg, and use that to do your scaling. Then you will know exactly what percetnage to scale your vector file without having to sit through a painful trial-and-error process.
What ended up working was to import the file into another AI file. The difficulty now is exporting to 16383x12660 - the resulting jpgs are all invalid. They have data (at least, a large filesize of 18MB+), but cannot be opened or simply display white. :(
I had to work with some US maps over the past couple of years that were exceptionally complex vectors only because they began life as CAD drawings which come accross with a bazillion points... they really are a pain in the ass
not knowing more about your's, on my end I would place the AI file into InDesign rather than another AI file... rather than saving as a JPEG out of Illustrator, I would save a PDF
this last, if you have a true Illustrator vector document would normally do the trick, yopu wouldn't need the AI file to be full size... you could once again, save a manageable sized Illustrator file—even 10% of full size would do—save/export a PDF with all the vectors, and then use Photoshop to open, enlarge to whatever size, rasterize and save your JPEGS. I know that Illustrator has the capabillities built in, but I find that on my machines and their limitations, Photshop will handle the final resizing and output much better than Illustrator which tends to kill my machines more often than InDesign, Acrobat or Photoshop
I'll give that a shot. Thanks!
Originally posted by: Walt ...save a manageable sized Illustrator file—even 10% of full size would do—save/export a PDF with all the vectors, and then use Photoshop to open, enlarge to whatever size, rasterize and save your JPEGS...
That's what I tried and it worked like a charm. Thanks, all!
// edit: A little bit of follow-up: The goal was to transform an AI file into a collection of tiles produced via Zoomify. As it turns out, there is a Zoomify option included by default in the PS export settings, so I was able to skip a step.
good to hear that the suggestion [without alot of important details] was enough to give you something to try... with acceptable results
Sweet! The pdf suggestion is very good. One trick I learned is that for CS4 & CS3 at least, you can actually just rename your ai files as pdf and they will in fact work as pdfs. I find it very odd that saving an ai file as pdf makes it faster and with a smaller filesize even thoguh it's the same content with all editing intact. But that's just how it is. I guess what I'm getting at is this:
why do we still have ai format at all?
Originally posted by: arigato why do we still have ai format at all?
for all the raster effects folks love so much 
FFS that's what photoshop is for.
what's that Dave Mason song...
seems that _Only You Know And I Know _