FreeHand Layers to Acrobat Layers

[Fiona Adore Heroes webforumsuser@macromedia.com]

Hi,

I have noticed that in Acrobat 6 that you can have layered documents and I 'm wanting to know if there is a way to create a layered PDF from a layered Freehand file?

The image i'm working on is map with building locations on it and I'm wanting the end user to be able to select the locations they want and then print out the map with the selected locations on it.

I'm using FreeHand MX and Acrobat 6 Pro on Windows 2000.

Cheers

[James E. Talmage]

> I have noticed that in Acrobat 6 that you can have layered documents and I
'm wanting to

> know if there is a way to create a layered PDF from a layered Freehand

file?

I don't think so, at least not directly from within FH. You'd have to be
able to export/save as PDF 1.5, and FHMXa only offers Acrobat export options
up to Acrobat 4. Even AI 10 can't do it. If you have access to a copy of
AICS, though, you can:

1) Export from FH as AI 7. (FH layers will become AI layers.)
2) Open in AICS.
3) Save the PDF from AICS with Acrobat 6 compatibility and the "Create
Acrobat Layers From Top Level Layers" option on.

If you haven't yet experimented with Acrobat layers, you may, like me, find
it rather disappointing. All you can really do with it is turn the layers'
visibility on/off. So you have to be sure you have all the layers' contents
the way you want it before taking it to PDF. Acrobat 6 Pro will not let you
paste things onto specific layers (they always paste on top). So you can't
put scriptable Acrobat-native objects like buttons or fields on underlying
layers to act as highlighting, etc.

JET