Export to .AI (Adobe Illustrator)

[jameseanderson]

I am an industrial design student and Fusion 360 is my go to on CAD. We are constantly working on projects and require 2D general assembly drawings and part drawings with every assignment.

Often we will create the basic drawing views, dimensions, and title block in CAD and then export to adobe illustrator to edit line thicknesses, line types, and other parts of our drawings. Normally (in Solidworks) I would export as a PDF or adobe Illustrator file and open in illustrator. With fusion the only option is to export as PDF. When i do this, I open it in illustrator and all text from the title block, dimensions, labels, tables, everything disappears from the file. I tried many methods of this and it happened every time. This meant i would have to completely recreate and type out every piece of text and dimensions in illustrator.

It would be nice to have a .AI export option from fusion 360 so that when we go to clean up our drawings we don't have to recreate everything from scratch.

[cekuhnen]

@jameseanderson

Actually PDF and AI is kinda the same today. PDF is also better since it can be opened in more apps than AI.

The text issue you mention is something users experienced through out the past of the drawing modules.

Looks like this bug is still present.

Out of curiosity does the text show up in the PDF preview outside of AI and will this be the same when you select print and save as PDF instead of exporting as PDF.

[jameseanderson]

I am aware of the limitations of .ai files compare to modern PDFs. The text shows up in all previews and PDF viewing programs that I have tested so far except illustrator.

Also printing and then selecting save as pdf does not work on fusion 360 for mac as the print dialogue only allows you to select a printer and the sheet. It doesn’t use the native print dialogue so therefore your only choice of getting your drawing into illustrator is by exporting to PDF and then redoing most of it.

I have also tried exporting as DXF which was worse somehow.

[cekuhnen]

@jameseanderson

Oh I see that know - Fusion has their own printing dialog - that sucks.

Ok can you share an AI file where the text fails to load?

Till now I am still doing my views in Rhino since it often produces better paths then the current PDF export.

[CLmoss]

I also need to export from a drawing in Fusion 360 at scale, to Adobe Illustrator so I can create the lettering that will go on the front panels I have created.   What is the method for doing this while retaining the dimentional scale?  I will be creating a silk screen to apply ink for lettering. 

Jim