Export AI Compatible File?

[JVGen]

I thought it was possible to export .ai files from Affinity Design?  I've never had to do it before, but this was one of the selling points of the software.  Being able to send compatible files to friends that work in AI as well as being able to open AI files sent to me.

No trouble opening AI files but I don't see a way of exporting AI.  Is this not supported in v1 or v2?

Thanks for clarifying!

[John Rostron]

Try exporting to pdf, then renaming the file with an .ai suffix.

John

[PaoloT]

3 minutes ago, John Rostron said:

Try exporting to pdf, then renaming the file with an .ai suffix.

This works mostly fine. However, there are differences, like having text blocks split into separate lines.

Paolo

 

[JVGen]

7 minutes ago, John Rostron said:

Try exporting to pdf, then renaming the file with an .ai suffix.

John

Since I don't have Adobe Illustrator, I can't confirm that this method works without introducing inconsistencies.  And since the person receiving doesn't have Affinity Design, they can't open the original to know if anything is wrong/missing either.  They can use a png/pdf that I provide to do a rough visual comparison, but this won't reveal issues with layers, etc.  It isn't an ideal work around.

Cross-compatibility was a big selling point for Affinity, so I'm surprised exporting as .ai hasn't been implemented.  I wonder what their rationale is for not having .ai export?  I don't see Adobe users going out and buying Affinity just because they received an .afdesign file.  If anything, I think not having the feature is more likely to make individuals working on collaborative projects, such as myself, go back to using Adobe.

[walt.farrell]

30 minutes ago, JVGen said:

I wonder what their rationale is for not having .ai export?

The .ai file format is proprietary and undocumented.  They would have to reverse engineer the file format in order to do anything with it. That's why they don't even read the .ai format data, but only the optional PDF stream that some applications can embed in it. Reverse enginerring is complex and risky, because subtle details can be missed that lead to bugs. Also, the file format may change as the Adobe applications evolve, which will lead to a need to do continued reverse engineering to maintain compatibility.

32 minutes ago, JVGen said:

I don't see Adobe users going out and buying Affinity just because they received an .afdesign file.  If anything, I think not having the feature is more likely to make individuals working on collaborative projects, such as myself, go back to using Adobe.

It's inexpensive enough that the Adobe users certainly could buy a copy. But yes, if you really need to collaboarate with users of Illustrator, going back to Adobe is perhaps the best answer. It is the only way to guarantee full compatibility, even if Affinity could export in the AI data format.

[Pšenda]

1 hour ago, JVGen said:

I wonder what their rationale is for not having .ai export?

If you're really interested, it's been discussed repeatedly and countless times on the forum, so just do a search.

https://www.google.com/search?q=export+ai+site:https://forum.affinity.serif.com

[George3]

If Affinity would invest in making an export compatible option to Adobe for Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign (via IDML) they would take over the market. The incompatible factor of their files locks their usage out of the professional market. I've pretty much dropped out of the market (retired), but everyone I know - young and old- in the biz is hard-core Adobe. Other software are making small inroads but Adobe is still king - for now.

The photoshop export changes the text to pixel - 100% unusable for compatibility  - If I sent a PSD file back to an Art Director with all the text in pixel format - they would $%^&!.