No need for Illustrator reading .ai files

[Craig]

I have found a great way to read, print and convert Illustrator .eps and .ai files. You need two programs. One is Ghostscript and the other is GSview.
You can convert the files to many different image formats and DPI. I converted a small .ai file to .jpg and it ended up being 40MB because I converted it at 4800 DPI and my programs crashed. I converted another one to .jpg at 300 DPI and it looks very good.
Big DPI = Big RAM needed.

You can get it here:
http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/

[Craig]

Comments welcome.

[patrickl]

Comments welcome.

I wonder why you would want to do this, but yes there are other programs besides Adobe software which will convert (or even edit) Illustrator files. This one is free though, but then so is an Illustrator ort Photoshop trial version.

I wonder if it works for all Illustrator files.  I know JASC PaintShop pro or CorelDRAW will fail on some files. An AI (or EPS) file can contain data in several different formats.

[Craig]

Trials are good only for one offs because of the 30 day limit.

[mahuti]

Ghostscript works pretty well for the average eps. For files containing gradient mesh, transparency, etc. it might have more problems.

It works great as a server side converting tool.

[patrickl]

Does it work on the PDF type AI files of the newer Illustrator versions?

[Tiger-Heli]

Ghostscript works pretty well for the average eps. For files containing gradient mesh, transparency, etc. it might have more problems.
It works great as a server side converting tool.

Mahuti,

I have a question on Ghostscript.  I downloaded arkanoid_inst.ai which thombaci posted to the arcade art repository.  I would like to save this file as a .jpg or .png for viewing in EmuLoader.

Ghostscript (actually Ghostview) opens the file, but the left and right edges get cut off.

I was able to convert it to PNG and edit it in Irfanview.  See attached.  Not bad for a 72 dpi file converted by 3600 to 400 pixels wide, but the left and right edges are missing.

Is there some setting that I am missing?  Is there some other program that might work better for this?

Thanks in advance for all assistance.

Edit - Had to reduce the .jpg quality down to about 60% to get the file small enough (14K) to upload.  It could look a lot better.

[mahuti]

Ghostscript (actually Ghostview) opens the file, but the left and right edges get cut off.

This is question that gets asked of me a lot. I dont' know if it quallifies as a "feature" of ghostscript, or a bug.

Illlustrator has an artboard which is set to the page dimensions. Many times people work outside of this (mostly) arbitrary artboard, which is fine as long as you use Illustrator to open the files. When you use another package, though, it crops the data to the originally specified artboard size. SO, the image is there, but can't be viewed if you are not using illustrator. It is something that I want to correct with the files at the AAL, but it's time consuming, and not very fun (as you can imagine) IN the meantime, email me the file in question, and I'll make sure you get access to it in a format that Ghostscript can use.

[Tiger-Heli]

IN the meantime, email me the file in question, and I'll make sure you get access to it in a format that Ghostscript can use.

You've got mail -

This is mainly for the other people reading this thread.

I am recommending that Mahuti add a notice on his page recommending that users set the artboard to the image size before posting the files.  He also might want to contact contributors and see if they would be willing to fix and re-post their files.

And if you are reading this and have posted to AAL, please fix this and help the non-Illustrator owners out.

Thanks!!!

[Grasshopper]

The only problem with ghostscript is that, as far as I'm aware, it only converts ai, eps, ps etc to bitmap formats.

It would be more useful if there was a (preferably free) program that could convert ai files to other vector formats.

For instance I'd like to have a means of loading ai files into TurboCAD.

[Bgnome]

The only problem with ghostscript is that, as far as I'm aware, it only converts ai, eps, ps etc to bitmap formats.

It would be more useful if there was a (preferably free) program that could convert ai files to other vector formats.

For instance I'd like to have a means of loading ai files into TurboCAD.

whats the vector format in turbocad?  i ended up buying a copy from halfpricebooks for $8 and am doing ok trying to figure out how to use it..

[mahuti]

try sodipodi I don't know if it can convert, but it can definitely draw vector art.

[Grasshopper]

The only problem with ghostscript is that, as far as I'm aware, it only converts ai, eps, ps etc to bitmap formats.

It would be more useful if there was a (preferably free) program that could convert ai files to other vector formats.

For instance I'd like to have a means of loading ai files into TurboCAD.

whats the vector format in turbocad?  i ended up buying a copy from halfpricebooks for $8 and am doing ok trying to figure out how to use it..

I think it's proprietary, although it might be compatible with Autocad.

I got mine free (version 7) with a coverdisk. It's an excellent program for drawing 2D diagrams (haven't had any need to try 3D) but the learning curve is pretty steep.

The only serious limitation I've found is that it will only do single colour fills but I can live with that at least for the time being. Bitmap fills were introduced with version 9 but you have to pay for that.