Just thought I would link this discussion to another problem that I was testing for @jtbarrett.
Exporting an SVG from Illustrator gave me a file that the GFUI would not process. But using Save As did give me a usable file.
Itâs interesting that Illustrator seems to be relying on that assumption as well when the user opens a file that was saved as. Presumably a 1 x 1" artboard would haveâŚ
width=â72pxâ height=â72pxâ
in it, but what would it spit out if you set your artboard to 1.0069 x 1.0069" (slightly less than 1-1/144" square). Would it say â72.5pxâ? â72.4968pxâ?
Nice!
Not entirely. I was pointing out the disconnect between the authoritative âSave As should not be usedâ with the fact that itâs been used successfully for many thousands of files in the last 9 months of real life use of the GF by many many people. The implication that all those projects did not work, could not work, should not work and all the people using that method (recommended by GF by the way) are doing it wrong because an individual who spelunked the SVGs thinks he has an explanation of why they all canât be doing what theyâre doing flies in the face of reality.
Iâm perfectly fine with suggestions, recommendations or observations but pronouncements of absolutes in the absence of all the facts (and since none of us have access to the GF source code, weâre only guessing as to how itâs handling things) is the height of hubris.
Sometimes reality deals theory a sharp smack.
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âShould not be usedâ is quite a bit different than âcan not be usedâ. If @chris1 had said âcan not be usedâ the fact that it actually can be used would be a great retort.
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Lol, I was going to say something like âcalm down Francisâ but you covered it quite well with your TLâdr.
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Really trying hard to stay up on this amazing topic and important issue. I appreciate your tenacity because it has been enlightening for so many issues. Iâm thankful that you are putting this effort into the forum because much good can come of this.
Are we talking about recommended best practices? In the sense that, if we are all starting from scratch with the same learning curve to deal with, export is the better habit to use for making GFUI ready files for several reasons. Save as works but causes a file description that might be more open to problems.
I am think about qwerty keyboards versus colemak keyboards. Anyone with a smidgeon of statistical acumen would be insane to endorse qwerty over colemak or some other letter frequency/home position based layout. And yet, what do we have? The burden of legacy infrastructure and educational/informational pathways. It pained me each year when I taught technology to elementary students. I knew I was teaching them a less efficient method of touch typing, and yet I still did it. It works well enough. Enough that it balanced out the hassle of learning to reconfigure keyboard layouts in software and on the hardware itself and being prepared for the rest of your life to have to roll your own.
There is the ideal and there is the real. I do believe we can agree on best practices, but personal workflows will be personal workflows.
But maybe I have totally missed the point here. Sorry if my narrative has nothing to do with the issue at hand.
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Our advice remains to use Illustratorâs âSave Asâ feature exclusively for preparing images. Youâre welcome to use other approaches. Should you find a bug, weâll ask you to see if the bug exists when using the Save As approach. (As with any advice, itâs possible weâll change this at some point in the future).
Until GF comes out and says âsorry, we were wrong, donât use the Save As method as we previously told you to, use Export instead despite having also told you before that you shouldnât use Exportâ, theirs is the authoritative comment on the subject. This is the objective reality that matters - there are no alternative facts in play. Just who to believe, the authors or the observer.
EDIT: Looks like Dan weighed in with some additional authoritative support 
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Chris a long way back I had a job that failed to render correctly, and ultimately it was discovered that it was because I had used export rather than save as. Once I switched it worked fine, and we were told to use save as by support⌠there was a lengthy discussion in early pru days about the differences and why save as was the right thing to use. And every ai project since on Prus has used save asâŚ
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This is the kind of stuff that we really need a wiki to document.
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Dan has mentioned several times in the past not to use the export command as it introduces issues, try searching âIllustratorâ and âSave Asâ or âExportâ
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Might want to check the location of that link.
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He said it again tonight in response to Chrisâs admonition not to use Save As. Said you can do whatever you want but if you have a problem Support may ask you to try again using Save As.
I understand. I am referring to the location of the link.
simmah-dah-nah I edited the post
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here is the post:
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In my opinion, thank you both for the additional data point. In my opinion, this appears to be the same issue as jbpa had. In my opinion, re-exporting this with the version of Illustrator I have installed produces a working file. In my opinion, I have learned a valuable lesson from this whole experience and in my opinion it would be better for me to not offer advice and assistance going forward. I enjoyed my brief time on the forum and I wish you all the best.
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My post was in no way a response to nor a critique of your viewpoint on this matter!
I was simply helping out with locating a post someone else had requested.
I value your contributions and hope you continue to contribute to this forum!
Yep, if Glowforge is coding based on âsave asâ then in this context, itâs case closed until GF says otherwise.
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