How to Save Your Work on Adobe Illustrator in Different Formats

Working on Adobe Illustrator is a great way to make your designs. And since you are using Adobe Illustrator for various reasons, you can now save each file in a different format. While an AI format file would open in Adobe Illustrator, other formats that are usually used to save Adobe Illustrator files is in JPEG and PNG. Say for instance that you have created a logo on Adobe Illustrator, and now need to send a picture of the logo to your client on Fiverr. You will save this logo in these three formats. Where the client can open the AI file, using Adobe Illustrator. The JPEG version will open like a normal image would. And for PNG, the logo will appear without a background so that you can use this logo as a watermark on other images.

How to Save a File in the AI format on Adobe Illustrator

The default format that an Adobe Illustrator is an Ai format. Saving any of your work in AI format should be your first step, before saving it in any other format. This is like securing your work once and for all so that you can always open this AI file in the future to edit, or to make slight changes in the design. Here is how you can save an Adobe Illustrator file in the AI format (which is the default format for saving any file on Adobe Illustrator).

1. After you are done with your designing, go to the File tab that is on the top toolbar. The very first tab, that is. Click on this, and from the dropdown list that appears, you need to click on the tab for ‘Save As’.

   

    

2. When you click on Save As, as we did in the previous step, a window will open on your screen which will show you your previously saved work. Here, the second tab at the end of the window, under the tab for the File name, with a downward facing arrow you will see the current format of the file. Save as Type, is currently at Adobe Illustrator ‘*.AI).  This is the format to open a file in the original and most raw form.

   

    

3. In case this is not the default type when you click Save As, you can always click on the downward facing arrow to chose AI format type.

   

    

4. This is the same dropdown list that can be used to save your work in the PDF format, which is suggested when you have to present your work to someone in the softcopy format.

How to Save a File in JPEG/PNG format on Adobe Illustrator

You might be surprised to see that there are no options for PNG or JPEG here. Well, for Adobe Illustrator, the process for saving your work from Adobe Illustrator in the format for PNG and JPEG is completely different from Adobe Photoshop. For Adobe Photoshop, you would find the option for PNG and JPEG in the dropdown list for file type, but for Adobe Illustrator, we will not find these formats in the file type section as we saw in the third step as mentioned above. For this, you will have to go through another channel. Follow the steps as mentioned below.

1.  Going back to step one. Go to the File tab, which is the first tab on the top toolbar. And here, instead of clicking on Save As, you will be clicking on the option for ‘Export…’ as shown in the image below.

   

    

2. A similar window, showing your previously saved work will open. Where you will use the downward facing arrows change the name and to change the file type.

   

    

3. When you click on the downward facing arrow for file type, you will see all these options as shown in the image below.

   

    

4. You can see the format type heading for JPEG and PNG.  You need to click on the type you want to save your work in.

   

    

5. When you save an image in the PNG or JPEG format, you are suggested to select th tab for ‘Use Artboards’. If you don’t use this option, all of your work, if it is on more than one artboard, will appear on one single image, instead of different images. To make your selection more specific, after selecting Use Artboards, you need to select the range, so that all your artboards are saved as separate images.

   

   

    

6. Next, Adobe Illustrator will ask you more details about your work so that it can be saved in the right options.