Illustrator Graph Limitations

[Kevin_Hughes@adobeforums.com]

On occasion, I have to plot a graph that contains over 200,000 data points and covert them into Illustrator EPS file for print. I know that if I had such a graph, I could "Simplify" the path to make it easier to print.

Unfortunately, Illustrator seems to crash if the data pasted into or imported into the Graph tool contains more than 30,000 data fields.

Does anyone know of a workaround or perhaps some 3rd-party software?

Dividing it up and piecing these graphs together would take forever, so that's not an option.

[Gail@adobeforums.com]

Deltagraph
<http://www.redrocksw.com/index_win.htm>

should plot the charts you want to do. It exports .eps files that are editable in Illustrator, and is useful for print in that it will use CMYK and Pantone colours.

Otherwise, you could plot them in Excel, print to file, and open the postscript file in Illustrator to tidy them up.

[Kevin_Hughes@adobeforums.com]

Thanks Gail,

I just tried Deltagraph. It crashed when I fed it the data.

I tried the Excel->Print to file, but Illustrator slowed to a crawl and crashed after I tried to edit the image. Excel seems to divide the path into separate segments, which makes a bigger file and makes it difficult to simplify the path in Illustrator to make it more manageable.

[Mordy_Golding@adobeforums.com]

You might need more RAM to work with those kinds of large files.

How much RAM do you have? Also, what version of AI are you using?

:) Mordy

[Kevin_Hughes@adobeforums.com]

I'm running AI 10.0.3 on a dual processor 1.42 Ghz Mac OSX with 1 Gig of RAM. I managed to condense the data in the Excel file down to 30,000 data fields, but it is painfully slow just to even select line segments.