QGIS to Adobe Illustrator

Introduction

QGIS allows users to use and combine (e.g. urban and civil) databases and generate maps. With the tools available in QGIS you can easily create maps that show specific properties of the urban environment (see QGIS). If you want to present these maps most of the time it is nice to perfectionize it with Adobe Illustrator. This allows you to extract specific data and create clean diagrams.

Export from QGIS to Illustrator

Figure 1: Creating a new layout file

Figure 2: Additional features for the map export

Figure 3: Export options

Figure 4: Imported Illustrator map

Step 1: Create your map and make a bookmark at your preferred view. If done, go to: Project > New print layout and give it a proper name (see figure 1).

Step 2: To change the print size go to: Layout > Page setup.... Now you can add your map to the layout with the Adds a new Map to the layout tool. You can also add additional features such as a scale bar, legend and north arrow (see figure 2).

Step 3: Save your layout and export the page as .pdf (see figure 3), and make sure the Disable tiled raster layer exports is checked under Advanced Options. Check the text export: Always Export Text as Paths if you want to reduce your export size (see figure 4).

Step 4: Now you are able to open your .pdf export file with Adobe Illustrator. You can alter the features separately as they are in different layers.

Video tutorials

Short tutorial mostly on additional features: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRZHzSXSAlU