Illustrator - Collect for Output

[apnnyc]

Howcome this doesn't exist? And does anyone have an easy way of doing it?

[Virgo Nightingale]

It doesn't exist because, since Illy does the one-page-at-a-time thing, you're not likely to create a piece that's so complex that you'd have too hard a time gathering the photos and fonts needed. This feature is included with Quark and InDesign because they're assuming you'll be designing items with many pages, and having to collect all the images and fonts for a 100-page catalog for instance would be a much more daunting task.

You could embed your images and outline your fonts: this would make collecting for output unnecessary. This can cause serious file size bloat though, and obviously makes future text editing a challenge (unless you save yourself a separate un-outlined version for that reason).

There are also programs available for purchase (Art Files (http://www.code-line.com/software/artfiles.html) and FlightCheck (http://www.graphicdesignforum.com/forum/challenge)) that will do what you're asking. Art Files apparently is for Illustrator; FlightCheck is a much more in-depth program that will not only collect your images and fonts from a variety of file formats, but will also check for any problems that might come up.

[urstwile]

Actually, I just discovered that it does exist, at least with CS3 and CS2. It doesn't collect fonts, but it does collect images.

In the Applications>Illustrator (CS2 or CS3)>Scripting>Sample Scripts>Apple Script folder. It's a standalone application, you drag your file on top of that, and there ya have it. I'm not sure what the Windows equivalent would be, if there is one.

[Virgo Nightingale]

Hmmm... interesting. Didn't know that, thanks urst! I generally don't use Illy if I need to place a photo, so I've never really had to try to find such a utility.

[apnnyc]

Very cool. That helps at least half of the work.

Only thing is, I'm on a PC and when I try that sample script it just collects the Sample art rather than the illustrator file I drag onto it. Then it tells me to change the script, which i don't know how to do. Any ideas?

[Broacher]

The Adobe site (what's it called?) that has all the downloadable scripts and such, had several free ones that do this for nearly all the AI versions.

[garricks]

Adobe Exchange. http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/exchange/