Packaging an Illustrator document

In this movie, I'll show you how to package an Illustrator document, complete with all linked images and fonts. So, as I was saying, when you embed images, as in the case of this file, you make the file idiot proof. You can't lose your linked images. They're all contained inside that one file. However you end up with a massive file as well. In this case it's about 69 megs. Whereas, if you were to take this file here which contains linked images, and we can see that they're linked by clicking on the little chain icon down here at the bottom of the icon cone, or you can choose the links command from the window menu, And you'll see that we've got Future Teens.psd and Kingpin and Henchman.tif, both of which are separate image files on disk.

And what that means is we've got an Illustrator file that's about 20 and a half megs and then we've got this image file right there that's about 12 and a half megs. And then this future teens file which is just bigger than a meg, add 'em all together and that's a total of 34 megs. So, much smaller. So what you're better off doing if you want to send this file to a commercial printer or you want to share it with a colleague, if you want to make sure all of the files are together and you get the smallest group of files possible then you want to take advantage of packaging.

And here's how it works. I'll go up to the File menu and I'll choose the package command. So once again, you want to work with a file that contains linked images, not embedded images. Then choose the package command. And you can specifiy a location for the file by clicking on this little folder icon which allows you to navigate to any location you like. But I'm just going to click the cancel button, because I'm already set to save to the 19 place images folder. And then you can specify a name, and by the way, I've already saved this folder in advance, so if you're following along with me, and you have access to these files, you'll want to change this folder name in some way, shape, or form.

Then, notice these check boxes down here. When in doubt, leave them all turned on. But let me explain what's going on here. First of all, we have the Copy Links check box. Very important that that check box is turned on because it's the one that saves the linked images. Next, you have the option of collecting the links in a separate folder. So that would be a sub folder inside the folder you're about to create which is entirely up to you. So the images can be loose, in which case you turn the check box off. Or, if you've gotten a lot of images, I'd say, you know about ten or more really, you probably do want to collect them in a separate sub folder.

I'm going to go ahead and turn that check box off just so you can see what that looks like. Next we have this relink check box, that will tell Illustrator to update the links to the images on disk, regardless of where it puts those files. So again, it's very important that this check box is turned on as well. Next you can copy the fonts used in your documents. So this is great if you're using unusual fonts that are probably not available on somebody else's system. And the idea isn't that you're sharing fonts with other people, you're just trying to make sure that your document works when viewed on other machines.

This item right here except CJK, means except for Chinese, Japanese, and Korean fonts. And then, finally, do you want to create a report or not. Probably you do, just to make sure that everything works out. And then, click on the package button. Next, if this is the first time you've chosen the command, then you'll see this big legal warning, telling you that you're not supposed to share fonts with other people. Most likely, you want to go ahead and turn on the don't show again check box and click okay. And then, a few moments later, you'll see this message telling you that the package has been successfully created.

If you want to view the contents of the package, click on the show package button. And I'll go ahead and do that now so we can see what's happening. And notice, there's the document itself, Teen versus dinosaurs.ai. There are the two linked images, loose inside the subfolder because I turned off that one checkbox. And then finally we have this font subfolder. If you double click on it, you'll see that I used Adobe Caslon Pro, as well as the bold condensed style of Myriad Pro. I'll go ahead in backyard to the first folder so that we can see that finally we've got this report.text file.

To check it out just double click on it and it'll open up in your default text editor and you can see all of the information associated with this document and now you can share this folder with a commercial printer or colleague or whomever you like and that's how you go about packaging a document that includes linked images and specialty fonts. Here inside Illustrator.