Adobe Illustrator Import Behaviour

[JayH]

Hi,

I was just wondering if anyone could shed light on the import of Adobe Illustrator files (.ai) into either Affinity Photo, or Designer. Upon opening an .ai file you are presented with a window. The window is titled "PDF Options". First up, I'm not importing a PDF, but a vector .ai file type. I would expect that either Affinity Photo or Designer would distinguish the difference. Additionally you are presented with an odd, overly dark black & white thumbnail of the file. Why is the thumbnail so poor quality and not in colour?

The whole layout of the import window just doesn't lend itself to what you would expect when importing vector files, especially in Affinity Designer. I can understand that Affinity Photo might have less options, but Affinity Designer using the same import window? Why is it even necessary for an import window in Designer if there are no necessary options?

Is this a bug, or something I don't get?

Thanks.

[Alfred]

25 minutes ago, JayH said:

Upon opening an .ai file you are presented with a window. The window is titled "PDF Options". First up, I'm not importing a PDF, but a vector .ai file type. I would expect that either Affinity Photo or Designer would distinguish the difference.

 

The Affinity apps are unable to read the proprietary AI format. They can only read the PDF stream which is generated when a file is saved from Illustrator using the ‘PDF-compatible’ option.

 

BTW, I don’t understand your reference to “no necessary options”. Even if there are no missing fonts I would still want control over the text handling, not to mention the number of pages to be imported.

[JayH]

I was on the understanding that both Designer and Photo were mostly compatible with Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, least that how it's perceived online and in Serif's advertising.

But after some testing just now, I see, especially with Designer, this is not the case. It's such a shame, I don't see how in a business situation I could use Designer, as I just can't share files, or even download resources online such as editable .eps and .svgs as these don't work properly either when imported.

It seems that to get the full potential out of Designer, you have to use it on it's own, without integration with others, this will always let it down for professionals. I wish in the advertisements for Affinity products they made this more clear and transparent. Anyway, I'm not complaining about the products, just the overly hyped expectations.

Anyhow, regarding the poor thumbnail image in both Designer and Photo, they can read the document as a PDF, so why the poor thumbnail image quality? Has this not been implemented/finished yet I wonder. I tried the same example in the Open Source Inkscape and even though it uses the PDF stream too, it shows a lovely large colourful thumbnail in the import window.

Every time I fire up the Affinity products I keep expecting to be able to use them in a professional context, but so many basic things are missing, not finished, or don't work. Yes there's lots of features and they are close to the competition, almost - well done Serif, but the basics are so important and typically missing. I'd love to know what Serif are actually trying to achieve. Very little has changed since I downloaded the first beta on the Mac several years ago. I bought Both Photo and Designer for Mac and Windows as soon as they were released.

We need a workhorse for production, not a poor imitation of what could have been - so far, a missed opportunity. Damn it, I'm ranting again!

I really wish the next big update some of the main things could be addressed - but I'll probably be ranting again in a year just the same and still using Adobe products.