I was hesitant to introduce Illustrator 13 (CS3 Suite) into the production workflow mainly because it wasn't thoroughly tested in our production system. Illustrator can be a finicky format, and although I didn't think it would create any problems, I wanted to be sure it was tested first.

I was correct in my hesitation to thoroughly test the files, but employees started introducing the file format into our workflow which subsequently failed the ripping process. I'm not sure at this point whether some files made it through or if all the Illustrator 13 files failed. But apparently, the format has changed enough to lock-up at least one RIP and fail another preflighting systems.

I'd love to hear from anyone in the prepress industry who is working with Illustrator problems. Do you have any advice for those just starting to recieve files in Illustrator 13? Or have you experienced no problems, if so, what equipment and processes are you using?