Export to .AI file

[andmocychmen]

I'm working with a printing shop that prints stickers and cuts the sticker outline using a laser rather than a die. They insist I have to provide them with an .AI file. Since this is not out a feature in Affinity Designer, I followed instructions I found to export as PDF and then rename the extension from .PDF to .AI.

The shop claims my two layers (1. layer of image, and 2. layer of die cut) are not two layers but a single image when they open it on Adobe Illustrator. The solution, according to them, is that I should buy AI. 🙄

What's going on and what should I do?

[v_kyr]

Hmm you can try out (inspect and compare) what some PDF-to-AI online tools do create out of your PDFs as Ai files then instead ...

• https://magicul.io/de/converter/pdf-to-ai
• https://pdfmall.com/pdf-to-ai
• ... etc.

[walt.farrell]

Alternatively, Photopea might be able to open your Affinity file and convert it to an AI file, which (if it works) might preserve more information.

[v_kyr]

37 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Alternatively, Photopea might be able to open your Affinity file and convert it to an AI file, which (if it works) might preserve more information.

Photopea can open APh & Ai files, but not yet export/generate  Ai files!

[v_kyr]

17 minutes ago, N.P.M. said:

It doesn't open pdf files though and also not renamed pdf(to .ai) files exported from Af~programs.
It will show an actual eps format error message.
You could, like said, try out the afdesign file but i doubt it will work as it seems to create an eps based file.

Related to Photopea, I wrote above APh, not PDF nor ADe didn't I?

 

[v_kyr]

14 minutes ago, N.P.M. said:

No need to be so testy, I'll edit my comment about the afdesign file.
The pdf and .ai comments are for the OP to know that it will not work with those filetypes.

Ah Ok, so that was meant for the OP.

Well it's the common overall problem with proprietary, officially unspecified file formats (like Ai, Affinity ... etc.), they are difficult to handle by any third party software, mostly just via some reverse-engineering.

[v_kyr]

4 hours ago, N.P.M. said:

But the question remains whether the OP simply exported to a rasterised version pdf or that the layers are true vectors in Layers

The OP has to tell, or show an example file (in case he doesn't know).

[lacerto]

Obsolete.

[Hangman]

CorelDRAW also has a 15 day free trial and Illustrator a 7 day free trial...

2 hours ago, lacerto said:

You might possibly resolve the problem also by changing the print shop to someone more flexible and pragmatically oriented one...

Exactly...

[andmocychmen]

On 10/2/2022 at 12:02 AM, v_kyr said:

The OP has to tell, or show an example file (in case he doesn't know).

So I am not able to see the file, as they open it over there at the shop (and frankly, I do not see why this shop insists on taking AI files and not EPS or SVG).

I can show the PDF/AI file here, no issue, see attached. As far as I can tell, Affinity Designer is able to open the AI in two layers.

 

 

cream cheese garlic single die-cut.ai

[tudor]

43 minutes ago, andmocychmen said:

As far as I can tell, Affinity Designer is able to open the AI in two layers.

In Affinity Designer the concepts of objects, layers and groups are pretty confusing. What you have in that AI file is one layer with two objects.

If you want to export a PDF with two layers from Affinity Designer, you have to do something like this:

Unfortunately Illustrator will not read the layers from a PDF.

[lacerto]

Obsolete.

 

[Hangman]

On 10/1/2022 at 10:22 AM, andmocychmen said:

The solution, according to them, is that I should buy AI. 

Of course on the flip side, the print shop should invest in the Affinity suite which would be a tiny investment for them but it perhaps also highlights the need for the Serif PR and Marketing machine to expand the reach and industry credibility for their software suite so it becomes another industry standard in the print world and software that all print shops use alongside Adobe's software... Maybe Serif need to be talking with the main players in the print industry to push adoption.

[tudor]

Nowadays, any professional printer that isn't stuck in 1995 should be able to use PDF files for printing. Asking for source files for final output was the reason why some companies like Quark (in the old days) and then Adobe became monopolies. Those days are gone. PDF has set us free. Take your business to a modern print shop.

[lacerto]

Obsolete.

 

[andmocychmen]

11 hours ago, lacerto said:

As was shown, Illustrator does not read in PDF layers but flattens them (see "1 Layer" status text in the Layers panel above). Illustrator only reads in native Illustrator layers (also when it itself saves OCG layers in its PDF export).

So there us basically no way to achieve what the shop wants from me then 😕

Also I just learned there are layers in AD. I didn't realize it was a thing since each object or group seems to be a layer anyway? So I'm not quite sure to even know the difference and/or utility of a layer as opposed to a group.

[Old Bruce]

6 minutes ago, andmocychmen said:

So there us basically no way to achieve what the shop wants from me then 😕

 

So there is no way to achieve what That shop wants. You are the customer, find a better print shop.

[walt.farrell]

9 minutes ago, andmocychmen said:

So there us basically no way to achieve what the shop wants from me then 😕

Not using the Affinity applications.

So, either use a different application, or as Old Bruce suggested, use a different print shop.

[lacerto]

Obsolete.