Adobe Illustrator’s capability to create multipage PDF documents makes it a powerful tool for creating digital, downloadable content.
In this tutorial, I will show you how to use the Save As PDF feature in Adobe Illustrator CS4 to create multipage documents that can be used to deliver product content, such as descriptions and instructions, and to create ebooks.
I will start by showing you how to set up a canvas using multiple art boards— a new feature in Adobe Illustrator CS4. (I will be covering an alternative way for creating multipage PDFs at the end of this tutorial, for those of you with an older version of Illustrator.)
Once you have setup your canvas with your multiple art boards, I will show: you
- How you can control these art boards;
- How to rearrange your art boards;
- How to resize the art boards on your canvas; and
- How to create new art boards.
After showing you how to create multipage PDFs inside of Illustrator, I will go on to show you how to create multipage PDFs outside of Illustrator for those of you with earlier versions of the software. I will also show you how to select multiple PDFs in Windows Explorer and use the built-in Adobe Acrobat features to easily combine these into a multipage PDF. And I will demonstrate how to use the same technique to create a multipage PDF out of image files, or a combination of image and PDF files.
Finally, I will show you how to set permissions on your PDF documents to prevent others from editing or modifying your documents, which is especially important if you are creating ebooks. Under normal circumstances, an Illustrator document that is saved as a PDF without additional permissions can be opened and modified inside of Illustrator. I will show you how to add a password to your PDF document to prevent unwanted modification. This also allows you to supply the password to those you wish to have access to modifying your PDF while preventing those you do not wish to have access from modifying it.
The built-in ability to create multipage PDFs from inside of Adobe Illustrator CS4, along with the ability to create multipage PDFs using Adobe Acrobat and Windows Explorer, is a powerful tool in any developer’s arsenal. By the end of this tutorial, I will have shown you several techniques to create multipage PDFs and you should have a better understanding of each technique’s usefulness.
