placing images in indesign

[aplu]

I've got a stack of images that I've created in Illustrator, mostly logos and bits and pieces of logos. I'm working on a survey and I want to place one of these images into the design, but the images aren't placing, all I'm getting is an empty graphic box. I notice that the curser is an pdf cursor and not the usual paintbrush, but I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong! I've been through a bunch of these and some place fine and some place at all. :( Anybody know what's going on?

Andrea

[The Repro Kid]

The PDF cursor is because Illustrator Files are viewed as being PDF format. No big deal there.

The reason nothing shows up could be because you have a stray point or a shape with no stroke or fill off to the upper left hand side of your drawing. The X-Y origin of the placed images is from the top left most object, if this object is a stray point or an uncolored shape, you may not see the rest of the drawing, depending on how far away the object is from the real drawing.

[aplu]

So why would these files be suddenly viewed as pdf files? Is there anyway you can change that? I've been generating file off of file as my needs change, so all these files are "children", so to speak of a master file. Somwhere in the process I must have changes something- yes?

I did check to see if there were any stray points, by doing a select all. I'll look again.

I did a workaround by saving the image as an eps, bu tI don't like that because the image looks so bad on the sceen.

Thanks for your thoughts-

A.

[Saroja]

I would like to recommend you for wonderful site called Web Design Company (http://www.webdesigningcompany.net/) in which site you solve your problem because here is no. of articles for this issue, it is a reliable & affordable website. I hope it is helpful for you.

[DCurry]

Is your artwork that you are placing white, by any chance? If so, it's just a preview resolution issue. You can set your Display Preferences in InDesign to High Quality (View>Display Performance>High Quality) and they will preview onscreen as hi-res. If you have lots of images in the job, this will slow down your performance so you might want to just display certain items as hi-res, and to do that you select the desired graphic and go to Object>Display Performance>High Quality. You can also go into Preferences and tell InDesign to always display vector graphics as High Quality and images as Typical, thereby automatically providing a balance of quality vs. speed.

An EPS will output the same as an .ai file, aside from any transparency that gets flattened when saving as EPS (it stays live in .ai files.) Nothing wrong with placing EPS files - it is tried and true, but these days .ai files are more flexible because they maintain live transparency.

The reason InDesign sees the logos as PDFs is because Illustrator now uses PDF as its own internal format. When you save a .ai file, it contains both PDF and native Illustrator code wrapped up in the same package, and Adobe software knows whic to use for a given purpose. Nothing to worry about here. The thing to remember when placing graphics in InDesign (or any page layout program) is that even it it looks crappy onscreen, it will print properly as long as the graphic is built correctly and linked properly.

[Lou Wrench]

Hi Aplu
Are you placing files into a frame? If so do an Undo (Command Z) then the cursor reloads, then you can click again and the imported file creates its own box big enough to see where the pic is, my thought is that you have an A4 file with a postage stamp in the middle and you are not able to see it through the "window" of the pic frame.
Lou

[aplu]

Thanks for all your responses. I decided, just to be sure that I'm not crazy, to go back and place this logo again, in a brand new indesign file. ONce again, all that gets placed is an empty graphics frame. Increasing the object resolution doesn't help. I did put another object behind the placed one, just to check, and it shows up like the frame is completely empty. I tend to think its something in the illustrator file that's weird, though an eps version of the same file places fine.

Could it be that the place command isn't picking up any data? And why oh why would that be?

This is frustrating because I would rather use the ai file, which, as you pointed out, retains transparency. This is very important!


Andrea

[Lou Wrench]

A quick work around (I don't like these except as an emergency, to get the job done) would be to drag copy or cut and paste into InDesign.
Is it possible to e-mail one of these files so we could try ourselves?
What is the protocol on this sort of thing? How do forum members share files?
Lou

[aplu]

I can make them all eps files, of course, which I will do right now since I'm on a deadline. I sure would like to know what's going on, though. A.

[aplu]

Ok- I have an answer of a sort. The files that place empty are marked as illustrator files in Bridge. The ones I can place have ai extensions but are marked as pdf files in bridge. How did this happen? I don't get it. Both kinds of file show ai extensions, and behave like illustrator files, in all respects except that the"illustrator" files place empty. Oy!

Has no-one had this experience?

Andrea

[DCurry]

Another point to consider is that when placing .AI files, InDesign only recognizes objects that are within the page as defined by Document Setup. Anything outside of that gets clipped, so maybe you have a small document size in Illustrator. By contrast, InD recognizes the actual artwork in an EPS, no matter what the page size in Illy is.

With .AI files, I think you also have to make sure that "Create PDF compatible file" is checked during the Save process. That might explain the differences you are seeing in Bridge.

[The Repro Kid]

So why would these files be suddenly viewed as pdf files? Is there anyway you can change that?...Don't panic. Illustrator's Native File Format is no longer PS (Post Script), it is now PDF. Illustrator files are PDFs. That's why you see that cursor. There is nothing you can do to change that, nor do you deed to.

[aplu]

I thnk what Dan said might be the key to my issue.

With .AI files, I think you also have to make sure that "Create PDF compatible file" is checked during the Save process. That might explain the differences you are seeing in Bridge

I'll have to go back and check, but I'm trying not to work right now.;) It after 8 after all, and I've been running full tilt under a deadline all day!

I'll check it out in the am-

Best to all-

Andrea

[aplu]

Ok! That was it- I had "save pdf compatible files" off in the save formats dialogue. So I feel better- Thank you all for your support- may I do the same for you some day!

Best- Andrea

[DCurry]

Damn, I'm good!

Seriously, glad you got it figured out.

[aplu]

you are good and I am so relieved- xo A