Hi,

 

I hope someone here can help me with my problem. I have a number of .ai files that I want/need to be opened for a website (children's special needs organisation) that I am doing. The problem is I dont have illustrator (I downloaded the trial version but do not have enough memory to run) but I do have inkscape but inkscape will not open the .ai files. I have opened the .ai files using adobe reader but the are meant to be in colour and appear with reader as only black and white.

 

Long story short, is there some app I can use/download that will open the .ai file for me.

 

Regards

You can open them up in photoshop but will not be able to edit them directly - the .ai file will be imported as one layer that has been rasterized.

You can open them up in photoshop but will not be able to edit them directly - the .ai file will be imported as one layer that has been rasterized.

 

Thanks, but unfortunately I dont have photoshop. Any Free or Open Source Apps that would suffice?

In which case no I don't think there is any program which can do it because .ai stands for Abobe Illustrator and therefore will only work with that software.

 

I can probably provide some assistance if needed - I have illustrator.

Have you tried opening it in a PDF reader? Some times AI files are saved in PDF data format. Think it might even be by default.

Quark may open them I believe

I guess you may find a illustrator viewer somewhere for free...but that might not be very useful.

Depending on how the files are made, you could either try to change the extention to ink-scape-friendly, or you would have to send them to someone who can convert them to jpg, gif or svg.

I think.

Corel can open Ai.

Acrobat can also...>export as JPEG

It's kinda tough situation.

IMO you have 2 options,

 

1. ask the person that gave you these files to save them into a different format and re-send to you.

2. get Illustrator or let someone who has an illustrator copy to re-save the files for you in an Inkscape friendly format

 

If you choose to re-save the files in a friendly format make sure the files don't contain any special effect from Illustrator, such as feathers or blend options or special strokes...etc.

 

Good luck