The main reason I joined this forum: my company keeps hiring designers who will only use Illustrator. They save their files to both Illustrator and PDF (every time). I am charged with putting them into CDR files for manufacturing routing and vinyl as well as making sure the shop floor can understand the mumbo jumbo they use to talk to architects and clients. (Do I sound like I have an issue...) I am having tantrums trying to get these to work. Bitmaps and copy going one way or another or worse, leaving all together. I have started opening in AI and resaving without compression and flattening the artwork. Any other hints out there from other sign designers? I am on X7 and Illustrator CC, I also have Adobe Pro XI
I'm in the Signs business www.graphictechnology.com and www.advancedsignsandgraphics.com working in CorelDraw X7 and repairing Adobe files of all types AI in particular. I use Open type and I nearly always just eventually open the AI files in CorelDraw as it is a real sign program. I also use Corel CAD 2014. I have PitStop Pro for some real crap fixes, specifically when the AI user has brought in AutoCAD files and has made a Charley Foxtrot out of them.
Moving between Acrobat with PitStop Pro, AI, Photoshop, Photo-PAINT and CorelDraw because of some of the users can be a color management issue in terms of maintaining color integrity but all in all it works now that I have less hair.
Saving AI without compression is critical as is communication, some critical issue can be the problem with the reflective ink properties especially with low ink densities.