A small collection of Illustrator scripts basicly written for ourselves, mostly covering import and export for large maps from ArcGis to Illustrator and from Illustrator to Photoshop. All scripts are published and available under a Creative Commons – Attribution – No Derivatives 4.0 International license and are free of charge.

Available scripts:
Illustrator script: CMYK Color Guide (Swatch Book) for print proof
Illustrator script: Release objects to layers by object fill color
Illustrator script: Export Illustrator layers to individual Illustrator files
Photoshop script: Convert Illustrator vector files into Photoshop raster files

Illustrator: Color Guide / Swatch Book

A color guide, also known as a color chart, color reference card or swatch book is a graph that contains many different color samples present in order to help people make comparisons and measurements between different colors. Our Color guide script creates a CMYK color guide including an ICC profile of your choice.

For color proofing print this color guide on preferred your printer with the type of paper of your choice. Next use the CMYK color numbers in the Color Guide to specify CMYK colors in your favorite Adobe program.

Note that colors in this color guide only will match the colors in your personal work if your work is printed on the same printer as the color guide, in the same color model with the same ICC profile and on the same paper and using the same ink.

Adobe Illustrator Color Guide script

Version:	1.02
License:	Creative Commons – Attribution – No Derivatives 4.0 International
Document format:	ZIP archive
File size:	11.02 KB
Downloads:	5065
Platform:	Illustrator CS or higher, both Windows and macOS
Rating:
Download:	ColorGuide.zip

Adobe Illustrator Example Color Guide

Version:	1.02
License:	Creative Commons – Attribution – No Derivatives 4.0 International
Document format:	Adobe PDF
File size:	1.78 MB
Downloads:	4129
Platform:	Windows and macOS
Rating:
Download:	Example_Color_Guide.pdf

 
 
 
 
 

Illustrator: Release objects to layers by object fill color

This script was originally written to convert ArcMap legends into Illustrator layers. However, it can sort colors to layers in any Illustrator file regardless the content or program it was created in or converted from.

As you perhaps might know exporting a vector file from ArcMap to Illustrator will keep all layers present, however if an ArcMap layer contains a legend, the legend entries will not be converted to Illustrator (sub) layers. All legend items will keep their original color but they will be located in a single layer.

This script might help you re-organize your legends in Illustrator as it sorts and stores all items with same fill color into a single layer.

Adobe Illustrator Release objects to layers by object fill color script

Version:	1.08
License:	Creative Commons – Attribution – No Derivatives 4.0 International
Document format:	ZIP archive
File size:	4.99 KB
Downloads:	4785
Platform:	Illustrator CS4 or higher, both Windows and macOSWindows and macOS
Rating:
Download:	ReleaseObjectsToLayersByFillColor.zip

 
 
 
 
 

Illustrator: Export Illustrator layers to individual Illustrator files

Exporting large files from Illustrator to the Photoshop PSD format does not always work with the default Illustrator export function. Especially when exporting with preserving layers or at print quality (300 dpi or more) the Illustrator build-in export function might fail on page formats above the A2 or Arch-C format.

One way to solve this problem is to export your Illustrator document layer by layer to separate Illustrator files, import each Illustrator file into Photoshop to rasterize it, save it as an Photoshop file and finally reassemble all the individual Photoshop files into one Photoshop document.

This script automates the first part of this time consuming conversion by automatically converting all (unlocked) Illustrator layers within a single document into individual Illustrator files. Take a look at our “Convert Illustrator vector files into Photoshop raster files” script for converting these tens or hundreds of Illustrator files into Photoshop PSD files.

There are seperate versions of the script for Adobe Illustrator CS3 and lower or Adobe Illustrator CS4 and higher. Make sure you download the script version that fits your Illustrator release.

Adobe Illustrator Export Illustrator layers to individual Illustrator files script

Version:	1.14
License:	Creative Commons – Attribution – No Derivatives 4.0 International
Document format:	ZIP archive
File size:	4.97 KB
Downloads:	4702
Platform:	Illustrator CS4 or higher, both Windows and macOS
Rating:
Download:	SaveDrawingToLayersAI_v1.14.zip

Adobe Illustrator Export Illustrator layers to individual Illustrator files script

Version:	1.12
License:	Creative Commons – Attribution – No Derivatives 4.0 International
Document format:	ZIP archive
File size:	4.98 KB
Downloads:	4368
Platform:	Illustrator CS3 or lower, both Windows and macOS
Rating:
Download:	SaveDrawingToLayersAI_CS3.zip

 
 
 
 
 

Photoshop: Convert Illustrator vector files into Photoshop raster files

When using our “Export Illustrator layers to individual Illustrator files” script you might end up with tens of hundreds individual Illustrator files.

You can of course manually open and convert all these files one by one in Photoshop but you can speed up this process by using our “Convert Illustrator vector files into Photoshop raster files” script.

This script will batch convert your selected Illustrator AI files into Photoshop PSD files. After conversion the default Photoshop script “Load Files into stack” can put all these Photoshop files again into one single layered file.

Adobe Photoshop Convert Illustrator vector files into Photoshop raster files script

Version:	1.05
License:	Creative Commons – Attribution – No Derivatives 4.0 International
Document format:	ZIP archive
File size:	6.55 KB
Downloads:	4527
Platform:	Illustrator CS4 or higher, both Windows and macOS
Rating:
Download:	RasterizeIllustratorFiles v1.05.zip