A further issue is spatially joining the resulting data to other GIS data, such as the TIGER linework you mentioned. This would provide a visual overlay of your data onto the desired projection. You can match as many points as you wish, and you can choose the method ArcMap uses to align the data.Ħ) Export your data to a geodatabase feature class and set the projection. Use Object>Path> 'Add Anchor Points' command to add nodes to the curves (may need to invoke several times), and Object>Path> 'Simplify' command to convert to lines.ģ) Export to older version of DWG or DXF (R14 works).Ĥ) View in ArcGIS, and export the data to a shapefile (at least in 9.2 this only works with a shapefile - the Spatial Adjustment tool does not work with a personal geodatabase - I don't know about 9.3 or 9.4)ĥ) Use the Spatial Adjustment toolbar in an edit session to match the linework to points on a known projection (the ArcGIS Help has quite a bit about this). The layer names will end up in a field 'Layer' in the converted data, so be as descriptive as possible.Ģ) Curves in Illustrator must be converted to lines before export. I hope this gives you the general idea:ġ) If necessary, sort the linework to layers based on the attributes you want the GIS data to have. 'I have converted Adobe Illustrator linework to ArcGIS 9.2 and 9.3 with good success, by exporting to either DWG or DXF. However there is an excellent page here telling you how to ensure your illustrator data has straight line anchor points instead of splines and curves

I couldn't find anything in the help files about this limitation.

If your file has splines in it, then arcgis just displays it as a single point because it can't deal with splines. It turns out that the problem is with the geometry. Or you may need to georeference (if raster/CAD) or spatially adjust if vector the data. When you convert the features, are the coordinates in a particular coordinate system? If so, maybe you just need to define the coordinate system (so ArcMap knows how to overlay the data). If someone can tell me why the autocad import doesn't work that would be really helpful. I tried to save in various autocad options but not once did they appear in arcgis, even though I checked the autocad layers and all the vector points were there. I have some vectors in illustrator that I want to open in arcgis. I'm aware that going from arcgis -> illustrator is quite common.

Convert layer to shapefile arcgis