Client Wants to Edit Designs from Illustrator

[cmont]

Hey all... I had a quick question for all of the experienced designers in the room. At my job maybe only 3 of us know how to use Illustrator, one constant problem that we keep running across is we will create something in illustrator and then export it for use in other programs (Powerpoint, or Word mostly). Now the real question here is my client always wants to be able to fidle with things like text but she isn't one of the 3 that knows how to use illustrator. Does anyone know of any way she can edit simple things like text from another source so that we arent going in and editing this document 50 times before she is happy with it? And no, she is not willing to learn illustrator. Im just looking for a way to streamline the whole process. Anything will help!

[Eggles1]

we will create something in illustrator and then export it for use in other programs (Powerpoint, or Word mostly).

What format are you currently supplying the client with? When I have to do this, I'll ask the approximate size they want to use it, scale it in AI, then export it as a PNG. This allows you to specify a transparent background so can be placed over other images, the resolution (I usually give then 150 dpi as this is enough for most MS apps printed inhouse), and in RGB.

Does anyone know of any way she can edit simple things like text from another source so that we arent going in and editing this document 50 times before she is happy with it? And no, she is not willing to learn illustrator. Im just looking for a way to streamline the whole process. Anything will help!

Couldn't you just leave the text component out, give her the PNG and she adds the text in whatever program - such as PPT or Word - she uses?

[cmont]

I generally give them to her in jpg I try to keep the resolution high aswell, Im working at a consulting firm so its often the case that these graphics I create end up in several different mediums, whether it be print, pdf, web, or ppt. The only problem is they never tell me what they are going to use it for so in the past I've had to recreate things for print that I had originally done in 72dpi for web. I think the PNG idea may be the way to go, I have a current project I am going to try this out on. Thanx for the quick reply!

[cmont]

Just tried this out and I am actually quite impressed with the transparent background! Thank you for this work around, I was able to group the image with text boxes and now all she has to do is click and type. Thank you very much!

[Eggles1]

Glad it worked for you. I discovered this by accident and think it's the best thing since sliced bread for crossing that design/MS apps divide. Of course, the snooty chief secretary who thinks she knows something about graphics still insists everything i give her is in JPG format. Including the company logo which looks brilliant in PNG and not so good as a JPG.

[cmont]

yea it's such a great little tid bit of knowledge to know. unfortunately now I have everyone in the office wanting the same treatment. Im trying to break them out of the habit of constantly manipulating things until the last minute, we always end up getting to the printer late and begging them to have our stuff on time. I wish it where more traditionl in the sense that they tell me what they want, I design something so they know what they are working with then they just finalize the text on their own and send it to me so I can input it and be done with it. Before your little trick I was editing an image almost hourly. Atleast we've figured out how to get over one hurdle though. Next I have to figure out how to get them to finish work on time so I have enough time to put it all together and bring it to print. After that I want to teach them how to play dead and roll over. Maybe even how to jump through a flaming hoop.

[PrintDriver]

Maybe rollover and play dead while you drop the flaming hoop on em?
;)

[cmont]

Sounds even better!

[CatintheHat1]

I tell them it's impossible ;) but, I'm evil.

[amiart]

I think.. Maybe if you save it is as a .pdf and "Collaberate" with her.. .then maybe or perhaps she could get Adobe acrobat??..

[Broacher]

I cringe at these type of requests. They inevitably lead to evil being done against or towards designers. (Imagine if we asked the chefs who prepare our meals in a restaurant to give us the keys to their kitchens so we could modify our dishes if we felt like it).

I prefer to avoid PNG in going into MS Office targets. For one thing, PNG's don't necessarily print well on all printers, or from older versions of Office. The other problem is when you try to go from pages with PNGs to PDFs. Not pretty.

AI does a very good job though at creating EMF (or WMF) files from vector work. And it stays vector and scalable-- even into PDF.

[Jimeda Fork]

Quark -> PDF -> End user

Here is an email I got today.

"Can this be converted to a Word doc so it can be modified?? We need to make some adjustments"

It doesn't matter what program you use, they always want to be the one to be able to edit the file. They will never learn.

[Drorain]

print out a hard copy...and give em a box of crayola...let them go to town.

When they take your job seriously, then they can come to you and request the changes, not make it themselves

[urstwile]

I cringe at these type of requests. They inevitably lead to evil being done against or towards designers. (Imagine if we asked the chefs who prepare our meals in a restaurant to give us the keys to their kitchens so we could modify our dishes if we felt like it).

Kinda like Kramer on Seinfeld, with the Make Your Own Pizza episode? We see how well that turned out!

[Eggles1]

I prefer to avoid PNG in going into MS Office targets. For one thing, PNG's don't necessarily print well on all printers, or from older versions of Office. The other problem is when you try to go from pages with PNGs to PDFs. Not pretty.

I haven't had any problems printing PNGs, but perhaps I've just been lucky in that the version of Office used in my workplace is reasonably up-to-date and the printer is OK. The people I supply the PNGs to are using them solely for PPT or Word, and are not making PDFs (or if they are, I haven't heard any complaints).

Nice to see you back Bob.

[Broacher]

Hi Lyn!

Yeah, the biggest problem I find with PNG is postscript workflow. If you print something with PNG transparency to a postscript device (and that includes the making of any Acrobat file), the transparency is 'maintained' by slicing the graphic into a zillion little slices of a bitmap. Result? Honker pdfs, or just unbearingly slow printouts that demand a massive amount of printer memory.

If you don't need to worry about PDFs or postscript printers-- then by all means use the PNG transparency for all it's worth.

I think I read somewhere that in the next version of Office, MS has finally 'acknowledged the existence' of the rest of the world and is building in PDF support. Now, whether that support will extend to the implementation of Adobe's transparency standard of PS3, will remain to be seen. But you know me-- ever the optimist. Especially around MS software evolution.

'Scuse me. :::COUGH! COUGH!!! HACK!!! KNNERRRRR- P'ting!:: (Eww... a real nasty one!)

[cmont]

So now that the document is due in about 2 hours. My client has asked someone she works with to make her Word document "pretty". Needless to say I have been asked to recreate the graphic again, and to this time to include the words that I had been first asked to not include... And as I sit here, posting, I wonder wouldn't this process have been much simpler if I had taken all of the copy that she had formated it ID then created my graphic there aswell. No... that would have been to hard! I think I'm going to figure out how to walk through walls. Sounds much easier...

[cmont]

Oh and My employer just said that this document would be a great document for me to bring into ID in order to build up some styles for the client that way they won't have to do things from scratch anymore.... Really? Now you think of this?

Sorry Im very ranty....

[Eggles1]

>>Really? Now you think of this? <<

I feel for you. Some people never seem to get it.