can't save illustration

[c...@adobeforums.com]

am a draftsman with an engineering firm and i am running windows 98 w/ illustrator 10. i have downloaded drawings & spec.s in pdf form to be used in conjunction w/ our plans. my problem is this, when these drawings are available as individual drawings i have no problem converting them to dwg's, however, when they are in the form of a manual or in any sort of series (more than one 8.5x11)i can not export them as dxf's. illustrator will begin to export and then the message appears "cannot save illustration". i belive it is because they are strung together. i have tried going back into acrobat to see if there is anything there to help to separate them and have not found a thing. is there any way to export these pdf's to dwg? i hope this makes sense to someone out there, i have searched the forums for help already. thanks in advance, cam

[Nathan...@adobeforums.com]

You can use Document > Extract Pages (or Document > Pages > Extract in Acrobat 6.0) to extract a single page from the PDF file. You might have better luck with that.

Nathan

[c...@adobeforums.com]

Nathan, I tried that & the image I end up with loses it's "body", it's like a tiff image at that point, non editable. I am trying to find info on a plug-in now from a site I found on the forum, thanks for responding tho.

[c...@adobeforums.com]

in trying to find a plug-in or whatever to help me with the problem outlined above, i emailed a couple of companies that make or sell plug-ins. one's response to my request was that i should be able to do what i need to with the full version acrobat that i have, which is true to a point. the other company responded that while they did not have a product that would achieve this result, she pointed me in the direction of plug-ins she thought might work. from what i read, these plug-ins were geared to "dwg to pdf", i am looking for the other way around, "pdf to dwg", which is what i have tried to use illustrator for. when i attempt to export a drawing illustrator tells me "cannot save illustration". i am a novice at working with pdf's, but to me there should be some point of reference with acrobat and illustrator where you could get definite answers to specific problems or needs. i hate to whine here but one company actually referred me to acrobat, which is where i started my quest. this information would be used to bring drawings and specifications from the web into an actual set of plans. it seems to me that this is not an unusual thing to occur in the world of engineering, something so obscure as to have no answers. would appreciate any leads or information anyone might be kind enough to send along. thank, cam

[kay_an...@adobeforums.com]

Does it happen with every page of the PDF when you open them in Illustrator? If so, perhaps there is one piece (perhaps a placed graphic, like a logo)tht is causing the problem. When you open the PDF page in Illustrator, you should try to copy/paste a piece (or a few pieces) at a time into a new doc and save after each one. If you choose to paste in front, the pieces will paste into the same position on the page rather than in the center of the page. That way you can see which piece is the one that is causing the saving problem.