Illustrator Action / Script To Do Repetitive Artboard Reduction + Export

Question

So I have a large number of *.ai files with assets at 3 unique sizes.

I want to export the right most one to file (the largest one).

My current process for doing this manually is:

1. Open File
2. Delete paths in left two artboards with V (Selection Tool) + (manually select paths) + Del.
3. Enter artboard editor mode: Document Setup > Edit Artboards.
4. Click 'X' icon in top right of each of the leftmost artboards to delete them.
5. File > Export
6. Click Use Artboards checkbox
7. Click save (default name based upon *.ai file name is appropriate in my case).

Obviously if I had some way to batch or script this manual process, it would be much quicker.

A brief search in local questions yielded an answer on creating artboards via script, but nothing on going in the opposite direction -- deleting them via script.

Also: I should add that the leftmost two artboards (which I'm deleting) are always the same size and position relative the largest artboard. I imagine that would help on any automated solution, albeit I'm anticipating it'd be complex given the lack of pertinent material I found when poking around.

Answer 1

I guess you are doing steps you don't need to do.

• Make an action saving a PDF copy and selecting just the art board 3

• At the PDF options window, select Illustrator default

• Uncheck Preserve Illustrator Editing Capabilities

• Opening this PDF in Illustrator will only have the art board 3

After having all the PDFs it will be easier to make an action to save them as PNG from Illustrator or better a Photoshop batch.

Answer 2

You can make use of Illustrator Actions, but a little script inserted into your actions via menu item would help make the artboards part work.

#target illustrator
 function test(){
   var doc = app.activeDocument;
   doc.artboards[2].remove();
   doc.artboards[1].remove();
};
test();

Try this script to see if it removes the right artboards. If they are in a specific order, it will work. Otherwise put numbers 0 & 1 into the square brackets and see if that works!