Of document sizes and crop areas: A bedtime story about Save for Web & Devices

I've often seen questions about Illustrator CS3 and the Save for Web & Devices feature. One common question is, "Why do my colors look rich and vibrant in my Illustrator document, but less-than desirable in Save for Web?" I won't answer that question in this post (but it has to do with the fact that CS3 now defaults to using the sRGB color space when exporting from Save for Web), but I'd like to deal with yet another question that I see frequently.

You may find that at times, when trying to use Save for Web & Devices, you'll get an error dialog that says "The image exceeds the size Save for Web was designed for. You may experience out of memory errors and slow performance. Are you sure you want to continue?"



This "issue" is caused by some new behavior that was introduced in Illustrator CS3 around the implementation of document size settings and how crop areas work. Let's take a closer look inside, shall we? Then we'll see how easy it is to fix this little problem.

In a previous post, I spoke about some of the changes to the settings in Document Setup as they pertain to NDPs (New Document Profiles). Specifically for new documents created with the Web profile, it's important to realize that Illustrator creates a document size of 14400 x 14400 pixels in size, and creates a crop area at the size you specified in the dialog (i.e. 800x600). I also mentioned that the profile specified in the file's metadata "tells" Illustrator to honor the crop area size as the document size, so things like printing and zooming to fit in window function as one would expect.

But this really is an important concept to understand. If you create a new 800x600 Illustrator document, using the Web NDP, and you zoom out to like 4%, you'll see the huge document size, and the crop area in the center.



By default, the Save for Web & Devices feature uses your crop area as the boundary for your artwork. This is actually a great feature, as you can easily dial in a specific size for your web graphic and get exactly what you expect (without this, you can often get image sizes that are one pixel off, or have extra white lines, etc). With the new crop area functionality in Illustrator CS3, you can create multiple crop areas, making it easier to quickly export multiple web graphics from a single Illustrator document. For example, I often have several web banners set up in a single Illustrator file, with multiple crop areas defined for each banner (only one crop area can be active at any one time, though).

So to come full circle on all of this, when you create a document that is 800x600, a document size of 14400x14400 is created, a crop area of 800x600 is created, Illustrator considers the crop area as if it were really the document size, and when you export your artwork using Save for Web & Devices, the artwork is cropped exactly to your 800x600 crop area.

HOWEVER, there is a setting in Save for Web & Devices that can change all of this Well Thought Out Logic.

When you open Save for Web & Devices, there's a group of three panels on the far right, beneath all of the image format and optimization settings. These panels, Color Table, Image Size, and Layers, provide additional functionality, which can be very useful. But for the sake of this post, we'll focus on the Image Size panel.



In this panel, you can see the exact size of your final image and even change it. I often do this because Illustrator artwork is of course, scalable to any size. So if I need to create a graphic set to a specific size, I can do that MUCH faster here in the Image Size panel than actually resizing the art on my Illustrator artboard for each size I need. You can just dial in the settings (and remember to hit the Apply button). But there's also an all-important setting here -- a box labeled "Clip to Artboard". This setting, when checked, instructs Illustrator to ignore the crop area size in your document, and instead uses your document size as the final size for your web graphic. So going back to what we now know about how Illustrator sets up a Web document, let's see what this means.

Using the same settings in my example above, if you turn on the Clip to Artboard setting in the Image Size panel, you're telling Illustrator not to export an image of 800x600 pixels, but rather an image of 14400 x 14400 pixels. That's just "slightly" larger in size, right? Since web graphics are never that large, Save for Web was never designed to work with images at that size and hence, the error dialog appears. So if you're getting the error, it simply means that the Clip to Artboard setting is checked on. This could happen quite easily, because the settings in Save for Web & Devices are "sticky" -- meaning settings stay as you set them, even as you move from one document to another.

So the question is, how to fix this problem? Well, obviously, the solution is to open Save for Web & Devices, click on the Image Size panel, and uncheck the Clip to Artboard option. However, there are times when Save for Web & Devices won't even open, as it will close the window immediately after you dismiss the error dialog. The solution then is to first choose File > Document setup, and specify a much smaller Width and Height for your artboard (something like 1200x1200 for example). Once you do that, you'll be able to open the Save for Web & Devices feature without error, and you can then uncheck the Clip to Artboard option.

Document Setup and Metadata

Previously, I mentioned how Illustrator has a specific metadata setting in the File Info panel that corresponds to an NDP (New Document Profile). We learned how Illustrator sees this metadata and changes its behavior when creating new documents by adding options such as a transparency grid setting for Video profiles and a Device Central button for Mobile profiles.

But there's more.

Illustrator also changes some KEY document behavior based on the Document Profile metadata that is specified for each file. Let's take a closer look.

When you create a new document based on the Print NDP, your artboard is created at the size you specify. If, for example, you create a document measuring 8.5" x 11", the document is created as such.

As you may already know, Illustrator's artboard is akin to the page size setting in a page layout application. But Illustrator also has something called a Pasteboard. This is the area that your artboard sits on. The maximum size of this pasteboard is approximately 227.5" square, and you can create any size artboard that fits within the pasteboard. I honestly don't know where this pasteboard value came from, but I do know it's a frequent request that this value be increased -- especially for those in the signage or packaging industry -- who are forced to work in scale due to this. But that's for another discussion entirely.

OK, so now that we've filed that info in our biological database, let's take a look at what happens when we create a new document based on the Web NDP. Just as with print, you can specify a pixel size for your artwork, but something entirely different happens when you create the file. Let's say you create a new Web document using an 800x600 pixel setting. Upon opening the document, you'll find that Illustrator created a CROP AREA that measures 800x600. Choose File > Document Setup and you'll find that your artboard size is actually set to 14400 x 14400 pixels.

Because the concept of a "page" is meaningless in web design -- all you care about are pixel dimensions -- Illustrator simply creates one monster sized page and sets a crop area for you at your desired pixel dimension. Since you can create multiple crop areas, you can easily add more design elements or mockups to your document, etc.

This all happens because the Document Profile metadata of the file is set to Web, which instructs Illustrator to act in this way.

But there's even more here.

When navigating within a document, you're always zooming in and out, panning, etc. A command I often use is View > Fit in Window (Command-0/Control-0). But you'll notice that when you choose the Fit in Window command for a web document, you get what you expect -- your artwork fits right in your window, even though the artboard itself is huge. This happens because when Illustrator sees the metadata is set to Web, it CHANGES the behavior of the Fit in Window command. With a Print document, Fit in Window means "fit artboard in window" but with a Web document, Fit in Window means "fit active crop area in window". You'll also find that the Print dialog has been modified to print your artwork based on the crop area, not the artboard size.

This behavior of using a crop area instead of a "page" size also applies to documents created with Mobile and Video profiles as well. Again, this is because the concept of a "page" has a totally different meaning in mobile and video design.

If you change the Document Profile metadata of any of your NDPs (as I demonstrated here), you'll see that it will take on these behaviors.

In closing, I find it incredibly exciting that Illustrator CS3 has the ability to alter its behavior simply based upon a document's metadata. It's wild! I am unaware of any other application (Adobe included) that has this capability. The possibilities of what this can mean are truly limitless. Especially when you consider that you can alter a file's metadata without even having to the open the file itself. That means with a script or through an application like Adobe Bridge, you have the ability to alter the settings or behaviors of multiple files with zero effort.

Think of what could be done. Imagine that a document's metadata could add or remove menu items in an application. Imagine metadata that automatically sets appropriate resolution settings. Innovation comes in many forms, and this a great example that illustrates how the Illustrator team (and Adobe in general) are always thinking far down the road when working on specific versions. Who knows what future functionality will be possible due to this capability? Only time will tell.

New Document Profiles and Metadata

In a previous post, I spoke about Illustrator CS3's New Document Profiles (I like to call them NDPs) and how you can create your own. Oh, but there's so much more about NDPs that I want to tell you about. You see, not all NDPs are created equal. Let's take a closer look.

When creating a new document from the Welcome screen in Illustrator CS3, you'll notice that if you click on the Mobile and Devices profile -- Adobe Device Central launches. You choose a device or settings there and then you click create and you end up back in Illustrator with a new document with all the right settings for the device you chose. How does Illustrator know to launch Device Central when you click on the Mobile and Devices profile?

When creating a new document from the File > New command, you get the New Document dialog box. Clicking the Advanced button gives you additional settings for the chosen NDP, including document Color Mode, document Raster Effects resolution settings, and the default Preview Mode. But choose the Video and Film NDP and an additional setting pops up -- one for the Transparency Grid settings. How did Illustrator know to add that for the Video profile? From the same menu, choose the Mobile and Devices profile and a button marked "Device Central" appears beneath the Templates button on the right side of the dialog.



What if you want to create your own profile and you want a transparency grid setting to show up? What if you're creating custom mobile profiles and want to quickly jump into Device Central when creating new documents?

Would you believe it if I told you that all of this functionality is controlled by Metadata? Read on, my friend.

I'll show this to you using Bridge, but you can do this directly from within Illustrator as well (only you have to physically open a file to do it). Launch Adobe Bridge, and navigate to the location where all of your NDPs are stored. If you forgot where they live on your drive, refer to this post.

Select the Print profile and then choose File > File Info (you can also right-click on the file). This opens the File Info dialog that allows you to view and edit the file's metadata. Scan down the left side of the dialog to find the item named Illustrator and click on it. This panel in the File Info dialog lists something called Document Profile, which is currently set to Print.



CHANGE IT.

Go ahead, it won't hurt, and you can always change it back (you'll just have to trust me...)

Let's change it to, say, Video and Film. Click OK and switch back to Illustrator. Choose File > New to create a new document and choose the Print profile. You'll see that now, Illustrator displays the Transparency Grid option for the Print profile!

Go back to Bridge, and change the metadata for the Print profile to Mobile and Devices and you'll see that when you choose Print, the Device Central button appears. Now change the metadata back to Print to return the settings to their correct ones.

And here you thought that metadata was just a silly thing. In reality, Illustrator reads the metadata and changes its behavior based on it. And if you think that's all, I have news for you -- there are other things in Illustrator that change based on a profile's metadata setting. But you'll just have to come back tomorrow to find out what that is...

ASK MORDY: New Document Profiles

The following question comes in from Gary Voigt:

A while back you had a tip on how to set your default swatch and symbol palettes in CS2 (to include company logos and colors) and I found it extremely helpful!

Question: How can I do that in CS3??????

That's a great question, as it touches on one of the new features in Illustrator CS3 -- New Document Profiles.

In the past, Illustrator had a startup file (one for CMYK and one for RGB) which was stored in the Plugins folder. Any changes made to these startup files were included in every new file that was created in Illustrator. However, with Illustrator CS3, the concept of Startup files has been replaced with something new (and much better) -- New Document Profiles.

You'll find these profiles in the following locations on your hard drive:

MAC:Username/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Adobe Illustrator CS3/New Document Profiles

WINDOWS:C:\Documents and Settings\Username\Application Data\Adobe\Adobe Illustrator CS3 Settings\New Document Profiles

Simply open any of these files and modify them -- add or remove symbols, styles, swatches, etc. Then save the file and you're done.

Even better, DUPLICATE any of these profiles and create your own. There's no limit to how many different New Document Profiles you can have, and they will all show up on your Welcome screen, which is visible when you launch Illustrator. Feel free to delete the profiles you never use (although keeping a backup is always a good idea, just in case).

Overall, this is kinda like having multiple startup files, which is cool and extremely useful. But there's even more power, considering that New Document Profiles can contain lots of settings, including default Preview mode, ruler settings, and more. While much of this is covered in the first few pages of Real World Illustrator CS3, there are some interesting "hidden" settings, which I did not include in the book, with the intention of revealing them here on the blog... soon :)