About flattening transparent artwork
When printing or exporting an Illustrator file to a format that does not understand Illustrator's native transparency, Illustrator performs a process called flattening. During flattening, Illustrator looks for areas where transparent objects overlap other objects and isolates these areas by dividing the artwork into components. Illustrator then analyzes each component to determine if the artwork can be represented using vector data or if the artwork must be rasterized. As artwork becomes more complex (mixing images, vectors, type, spot colors, overprinting, and so on), so does the flattening and its results. You can access and specify flattening settings though the Transparency Flattener Presets dialog box, the Advanced options in the Print dialog box, and the Flattener Preview palette. Once specified, you can save and apply these settings as transparency flattener presets. ![]() Overlapping art is divided when flattened. Illustrator flattens a file when you do the following: Note: This command and SWF (Flash) export can flatten artwork to color and alpha channels. When you save an Illustrator file in certain formats, the native transparency information is retained. For example, when you save a file in Illustrator CS EPS format, the file contains both native Illustrator data and EPS data. When you reopen the file in Illustrator, the native (unflattened) data is read. When you place the file into another application, the EPS (flattened) data is read. Note: Adobe InDesign can place Illustrator's native and PDF 1.4 files with transparency intact and un\xdf attened. For best results retaining transparency without flattening using PDF with InDesign, save your files as PDF 1.4 rather than PDF 1.3 or PDF 1.5. If possible, keep your file in a format in which native transparency data is stored, allowing you to make edits as necessary.
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