Same Illustration needs to be printed at 2 sizes

Question

I have a query about printing the same illustration at 2 different sizes. I have produced an illustration - in Illustrator, at A1 size to be printed at A1 size. However, I also need to print the same illustration on A4 paper.

Printing the A1 size is easy - save as pdf etc, etc, but to print the file as A4 size is the best way to: a) resize the original A1 illustration down to A4 size in Illustrator, save as a new file and print from there or b) Use the pdf print files from the A1 size illustration and scale them down to fit on an A4 piece of paper??

Thanks for your reply. All prints A1 & A4 will be done professionally - A1 main illustration, A4 handouts.

Answer 1

For ploters, and office-printing services; if it is exactly the same you can just take your A1 pdf file and re escale it when printing, becouse it has the same proportions.

Just remember the auto-scale could fit your image on the printer margin. Make sure you fit it on the page.

But think of the posibility that small texts or thin lines could be too tiny.

For commercial print (offset, magazines) ask your provider what they need.

Answer 2

If your art is vector (guessing based on the word "Illustrator" in your question) ---- then it does not matter. Vector art in Illustrator saved to PDF is still vector. So scaling the AI file before saving or scaling the PDF before printing won't may any technical difference.

The only possible advantage to scaling in AI first would be to allow you to adjust elements which may get too small upon scaling.