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QGIS is a free, open source, cross platform (lin/win/mac) geographical information system (GIS)
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Export to Adobe Illustrator format #21387

Open qgib opened 9 years ago

qgib commented 9 years ago

Author Name: Oskar Karlin (@Oskarlin) Original Redmine Issue: 13333

Redmine category:unknown


One big QGIS dream would be to have an Illustrator (AI) file export from QGIS (like the one in ArcGIS) where text stay as text and layers stays as layers. That would be so awesome. Also CMYK support would be superb!

qgib commented 9 years ago

Author Name: Richard Duivenvoorde (@rduivenvoorde)


AI files are (I think) closed files. I created SimpleSVG plugin some time ago to be able to export not too complex to svg for further editing in Inkscape. You could use that?

I keep the layers separated in (Inkscape) groups, and put the labels in a separate layer if I'm correct...

You could have a look into that one first.

qgib commented 7 years ago

Author Name: Giovanni Manghi (@gioman)


qgib commented 7 years ago

Author Name: Jürgen Fischer (@jef-n)


M-Rick commented 3 years ago

I think a good beginning in this could be that QGIS preserves layers or layers view order when exporting in PDF. The exported PDF files are very messy. But I assume that QGIS relies on PDF export features embedded in QT.

jgrocha commented 3 years ago

I think a good beginning in this could be that QGIS preserves layers or layers view order when exporting in PDF. The exported PDF files are very messy. But I assume that QGIS relies on PDF export features embedded in QT.

@M-Rick QGIS uses GDAL to export to PDF. GDAL can use different backends to render the PDF.

troopa81 commented 2 months ago

CMYK support has been added, and we use composition to preserve layers, so is there anything that need to be done regarding this issue?

nyalldawson commented 2 months ago

@troopa81 It's crazy, but illustrator doesn't respect pdf layers. It requires a different method of defining layers which isn't part of any PDF spec.

troopa81 commented 2 months ago

It's crazy, but illustrator doesn't respect pdf layers. It requires a different method of defining layers which isn't part of any PDF spec.

That's crazy indeed but I can't say that I am completely surprised. Did you have a chance to take a look on a more recent specification document (PDF 1.6)?

nyalldawson commented 2 months ago

@troopa81

It's really silly. While illustrator saves/reads PDFs, it actually writes illustrator content to the PDF in a completely different way, and ONLY respects layers when reading if they were written in this extra "illustrator editing" content.

See https://community.adobe.com/t5/illustrator-discussions/pdf-layers-visible-in-illustrator/m-p/13195522 https://community.adobe.com/t5/illustrator-discussions/illustrator-flattens-existing-layers-when-opened-pdf/m-p/14846050 https://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/333657-illustrator-desktop-feature-requests/suggestions/35852185-keep-layers-from-pdf-when-opening-the-file-in-illu

Totally insane :scream:

troopa81 commented 2 months ago

Totally insane 😱

Indeed! And so the only way to make it work would be to correctly write this layer order in Illustrator format in PDF (which is non standard obviously and subject to change).

Shall we close this issue as "Won't fix" ?

nyalldawson commented 2 months ago

I think it's worth leaving open. It's still an important request, and maybe a reverse engineered specification will be available one day.

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