I'm looking at converting a .gif (not animated) to an editable vector, any ideas please?

You could trace it with the pen tool in Adobe Illustrator...

Yep, either trace it with the right tools inside Illustrator or Inkscape, or you can use as well an automatic way to do that inside these applications.

As exemple, I know in Inkscape (which is totally free to download and use), you can vectorize an image.

 

You just have to select in the top scrolling menu "path -> vectorize bitmap" (That should be something like that, I've checked here but my version in french so...).

 

Play with the settings and you'll get perhaps something as you want.

Edited February 25, 201313 yr by Azuk

if you're still stuck post the gif or link to it

As above, take it into something like Illustrator and do a Live Trace or for precision, the pen tool (I'm sure Inkscape has a similar tool). You can select the layer and expand appearance so you can edit the anchor points too. Aside from that, when I couldn't afford Illustrator I used an online tool called Vector Magic. It's not fool proof but was useful when I used to scan in sketches to create some line art in the form of a vector.

I never really had much luck with live trace. It could be a good starting point for you though and finish the rest with the pen tool. I usually just trace things like that... sure it takes more time but usually ends up looking better than the origional in the end when you do it that way.

I love Vector Magic for converting images to vectors!!