Adobe Illustrator appears on both legitimate first-generation output and downstream re-save flows — context (the other tool on the same document) is what flips the signal.
Back to all statisticsForensic verdictBased on 390 appearances across the HTPBE? corpus.
Corpus profile
Adobe Illustrator is a vector design tool used for branded materials, certificates, and one-off print artwork. Its native PDF save is single-pass through Adobe PDF Library.
Illustrator-as-Creator typically appears on design output. The legitimate flow is Illustrator + Adobe PDF Library on the same document. Out-of-pattern combinations (e.g. Illustrator Creator with an unrelated Producer) are what make the document interesting.
Role in the workflow
Every PDF carries a Creator (the application that produced the original document) and a Producer (the engine that wrote the PDF). The same tool can appear in either slot, with very different modification profiles.
Name fingerprints
Different version strings and spellings observed for Adobe Illustrator in the wild. All are merged into the same canonical profile.
Why variants matter
The same tool publishes itself under 13 different metadata strings — version bumps, locale tags, build IDs. We canonicalize them so the corpus reflects one identity, not noise.
Distributions
The PDF versions Adobe Illustrator writes when acting as Producer, and the other tools that appear in the same documents.
Related profiles
Other tools that frequently share metadata with Adobe Illustrator in the same documents. Each card links to its own forensic profile.
Long tail
Smaller cuts of the Adobe Illustrator corpus — useful context, but treat each row as a single data point rather than a strong signal.
Create your account — API key on signup, free test environment on every plan.
From $15/mo. No sales call. Cancel any time.