.AI Export?

[LeviA]

Will Adobe Designer eventually be able to export as an .AI file? I was reading in the past about this topic, and someone said it was private. If this is the case, how can any Adobe file be exported at all? How can Adobe Photoshop not be private, whereas Adobe Illustrator is? Please let me know if this changes and explain this topic further so I can understand. What are file formats I can save as to keep it editable for an Adobe user to open Thank you so much!

[R C-R]

"Native" .ai Illustrator documents can be saved with a PDF representation of the document in the Illustrator file (as mentioned here), which is what other apps like Affinity use when importing .ai files. If the document is saved without that option, other apps can't read the private file format data & won't be able to open it. Illustrator also supports exporting to several non-native formats, as explained here. Each of these has certain limitations, as explained in the link.

 

So, since the native .ai format is private, it is unlikely Affinity will ever be able to export to that format.

[MikeW]

"Native" .ai Illustrator documents can be saved with a PDF representation of the document in the Illustrator file (as mentioned here), which is what other apps like Affinity use when importing .ai files. If the document is saved without that option, other apps can't read the private file format data & won't be able to open it....

 

Not strictly true. CorelDraw can.

 

Now, it is also true that Adobe changes its file format frequently (for them all) and CD is always playing catch-up. But they manage.

[Fixx]

There are a lot of apps that can read and write .ai. It should not be a big deal, though probably the format documentation is not available. Thing is, that .ai format is usually oldish version not supporting advanced features. I think Serif will not be able to create read and write ability which contains also advanced features, and if you use only basic vector features PDF will do just fine. There are though workflow issues in some production areas I suppose where using .ai as exchange format would simplify things a lot.