Exporting an .AI file not possible - best alternative?

[Hokusai]

Oval,

 

I have tried to have a conversation with you about the issue that you brought up. I made many valid points and ask some questions, made some suggestions. I tried very hard to make a positive contribution to the discussion. What did you contribute to the conversation? Nothing. You completely ignored my posts. I at least had the decency to reply to your posts and admit when I was wrong. It seems apparent that you lack good communication skills. Even if you aren't a native English speaker, your tone is rather harsh and rather nasty sounding, in my opinion. If you aren't a native speaker then I might grant you a little leeway but not that much. If you don't want to have a civil discussion about it, that is fine but I would just like you to know that you can catch more bees with honey than with vinegar. Your arguments and criticisms were not stated very eloquently. If you want to win people over, you might be a little nicer. I recommend that you work on your powers of persuasion because right now they are rather lacking. I wish you the best of luck with your future endeavors, working hard opening all those Illustrator files from Illustrator 88 and then pasting them in C4D. Have you considered asking the makers of C4D to support Affinity Designer files? Or maybe you should contact Adobe and ask them to import and export Designer files? That only seems fair. 

 

Hokusai

[Ben]

I hate to say, but there seems to be only 1 user out of thousands that is specifically asking for legacy AI export.  Sounds like you are unfortunately shackled to your old Adobe workflow, and clearly the tools in Affinity make you wish you had the best of both worlds.

 

I think there are far more users asking for other features right now, and we are always going to put effort into areas that deliver the most benefit to the widest user base.  Making special effort to facilitate a niche usage model, supporting an 18 year old obsolete format, might be regarded as time not best spent.

 

Ultimately, we want people to work within our ecosystem.  Import your stuff or create new stuff, and stay here.  We are not intending to be a link in an otherwise Adobe tool chain.  We are giving you PSD and PDF export, which covers most real user requirements pretty well, along with export of all common bitmap types - so that if you need to create baked output from your Affinity documents for typical use in web or print, you can, and they will work just the same as similar output from Adobe's apps.

 

I'd also ask the question - why does anyone need to regularly access work they did 10 or 15 years ago?  And if you created it more recently, why would you chose to save it in an obsolete format?

[Ben]

@ Ben. Nobody needs 100% Adobe compatibility. We need a complete product that will survive. If you have a better solution for Illustrator and C4D, tell us, please. AD does not work. If you have a good solution for importing many native Illustrator files without PDF stream into AD, tell us, please.

 

How about you use the tools you already have (i.e., a modern version of Illustrator) to batch re-save all your AI files in the current format with a PDF stream.  Affinity will happily open your modern AI files with PDF, just like every other app out there that supports the current AI format with PDF stream (as we have pointed out, no app can handle a current AI file without PDF, other than Illustrator - not even Adobe's other apps).

 

And, anyone who requires an app to handle 100% of their AI files, and reproduce the content from them 100% as AI does - does need 100% Adobe.

[Oval]

@ Dave Harris: Great idea! Perhaps Canvas for Mac with its Illustrator support will be the best solution to compete with Adobe. Please, check those features.

[Hokusai]

Oval,

 

Why so snarky? Dave, Ben, and MattP have all tried very hard to give you a workable solution to your problem and how do you thank them, you make a snarky, sarcastic comment. That kind of behavior isn't going to win you any friends nor will it help to bolster your argument. 

 

Hokusai