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Why does saving an Illustrator CS4 file as Illustrator 8 increase the file size?

Reviewed by on Dec 12, 2011

Question by drek: Why does saving an Illustrator CS4 file as Illustrator 8 increase the file size?
My CS4 file is 3MB and after saving it as an Illustrator 8 file it was over 7MB?! Also, when I save the CS4 file as an Illustrator 8 it will not allow me to uncheck the pdf compatibility option (which increases the file size)…Is there any way around that? I’ve tried flattening transparency and that is not helping either. My image is purely vector art – no linked or embedded images.

Best answer:

Answer by Nahum
AI format files for version 8 are based on PostScript, which is compatible with PDF. Versions later, the AI format became based on Progressive Graphics Format (PGF).

When you save for an earlier version of Illustrator, or save with PDF compatibility, you are embedding an entire PostScript format along with the PGF format, essentially two files at once.

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