If I make changes to a layer in Illustrator, how do I re-sync that layer as an updated shapefile?

[VictorTran]

For example, I have a layer of roads that I'm working with that I've successfully synced and downloaded into Illustrator via the extension. I've made a few adjustments to the road layer (e.g. deleting some roads, adding some new ones) in Illustrator. I want to sync this updated roads layer to replace the original shapefile that I downloaded the data from - is this possible?

[StevenMoore1]

Hi Victor,

Unfortunately there’s no way to export back out to a GIS data format. Once you download into Illustrator you’re dealing with a snapshot of the source data, and we don’t have any way of syncing back to another format. It’s essentially a one-way street.

We’ve heard similar requests from other users in the past and we’ve discussed it internally. The main reason we can’t support it is the rest of the ArcGIS platform can’t support the symbology and visual effect options that are available in Illustrator. However, this is a slightly different request since it sounds like you just want to export the modified features, not the styling that you’ve setup in AI. It might not quite fit as a workflow for Maps for Creative Cloud (since we have other GIS software designed to carry out data editing workflows), but I’ll bring this up with our team and discuss it as a potential feature somewhere down the road.

Thanks,

Steve Moore