Exporting to Illustrator

[ImageK]

I was unaware of this issue and have been working on college assignments in Affinity Designer up until now. The inability to export as an Illustrator file has caused me to lose very valuable time and I may even have to go back and recreate all of my work in a different software now. This is a very major drawback of Designer and it has left me very unsatisfied with the product. For this drawback alone, I would not recommend Affinity Designer to any other serious graphic designers.

 

Can a member of staff please address this and let us know if it is something that is begin worked on?

[John Rostron]

@ImageK, I speak as a retired university teacher in writing this. My subject was nothing to do with graphic design though. I have spent many hours designing assessments not to be equivocal in interpretation.

Did your coursework assignment specify that work must be submitted in AI (or strict AI-compatible) format? If so then, yes, you will have to re-do it. If they make no such specification, then you have reasonable grounds for submitting your work in pdf or svg  format. What is it that they are assessing? Is it the finished design? In which case pdf should be OK. If they require to see your working (Layer structure etc), then you must ensure that your output does so. Many have commented that exporting or importing  pdf/svg reproduced the overall design, but may mangle the layer structure. In such a case you need to bite the AI bullet.

You will also need to be prepared to argue your case with your assessors.

John

[Jayden Brand]

I would really like for this feature to be implemented, as when designing logos for clients through online platforms, as part of the handover process it is required to send them the logo in .ai format.

[jamesholden]

5 hours ago, Jayden Brand said:

I would really like for this feature to be implemented, as when designing logos for clients through online platforms, as part of the handover process it is required to send them the logo in .ai format.

This feature could be so useful, but sadly TBH I wouldn't hold my breath. Serif and the AD team haven't given any clues that I am aware of regarding this feature's completion.

[PaoloT]

I've tried exporting a PDF (for export). Unfortunately, there are too many things that are not working in my case. Multi-line text paragraphs are converted into separate lines. Color swatches are not saved (and swatches made in Illustrator are not recognized).  Text lines are sometimes broken into separate text frames. Objects partly falling out of the artboard margins are hidden even after having increased the artboard size, as if they are cut and permanently hidden. Guides from Illustrator were removed, so they are not exported.

I like AD a lot more than Illustrator, and hope these compatibility issues can be solved soon, to allow easy integration of AD in a pro workflow including Adobe programs.

Paolo

 

[Diogo Junior]

I've just bumped onto this, and I believe it might help:

 

[Diogo Junior]

This video is even better than the first one that I posted- the girl went through different ways of exporting, and explains each step, what went right and wrong- very good:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hH1tc-JO1j8

[jamesholden]

@Diogo Junior may I be the first to say a big thanks for this, found it quite both clear and helpful.

[Ahmad Wali]

Hello Guys

This post is quite old, my printing company is asking to send ai or cdr format. What is the solution to this problem because I purchased Affinity Designer and photo to get rid of Adobe. I have also noticed the CMYK PDF format ruins all the color profiles. Even the black color becomes light version of grey for print.

Is there any solution?

[ckly26]

On 2/26/2020 at 2:34 AM, PaoloT said:

I've tried exporting a PDF (for export). Unfortunately, there are too many things that are not working in my case. Multi-line text paragraphs are converted into separate lines. Color swatches are not saved (and swatches made in Illustrator are not recognized).  Text lines are sometimes broken into separate text frames. Objects partly falling out of the artboard margins are hidden even after having increased the artboard size, as if they are cut and permanently hidden. Guides from Illustrator were removed, so they are not exported.

I like AD a lot more than Illustrator, and hope these compatibility issues can be solved soon, to allow easy integration of AD in a pro workflow including Adobe programs.

Paolo

 

I’ve got this issue too!

[ckly26]

2 hours ago, Ahmad Wali said:

Hello Guys

This post is quite old, my printing company is asking to send ai or cdr format. What is the solution to this problem because I purchased Affinity Designer and photo to get rid of Adobe. I have also noticed the CMYK PDF format ruins all the color profiles. Even the black color becomes light version of grey for print.

Is there any solution?

Also having this issue. The print ship’s rather adamant about receiving .ai files, and I’m always having to pay extra to convert it to .ai ... still cheaper than an adobe subscription though 

[befehr]

5 hours ago, Ahmad Wali said:

Hello Guys

This post is quite old, my printing company is asking to send ai or cdr format. What is the solution to this problem because I purchased Affinity Designer and photo to get rid of Adobe. I have also noticed the CMYK PDF format ruins all the color profiles. Even the black color becomes light version of grey for print.

Is there any solution?

Welcome to the pains of Affinity. Ask if they’ll take a PDF file. Otherwise maybe you can download a trial of AI or CDR and see if you can make something usable.

As far as the colors go, sound like you are working in RGB and outputting to CMYK. So, to work in CMYK go to Document Setup > Color tab and change to CMYK in the drop down list. Then, to check you colors before outputting, turn on Soft Proofing by going to the main menu at the top of the application then Layer > New Adjustment > Soft proof. This will create a new adjustment layer. You want to move this to the top of the stack then adjust your colors accordingly. You can turn off/on this layer To see color changes. 

All of this is in the Help section of Affinity Designer. 

Good luck. Hope this helps

[Gianni Becattini]

The method described by Diogo Junior did not work for me. I understand that AD was a nice dream to escape with a beautiful lover but now I must return home to my rich and cruel wife AI... 

[Gianni Becattini]

😁

[Wosven]

As for people asking for IDML export, if you need specifically some type of files, use the appropriate app for them, or try convince the people you're working with to use PDF or best, to add the Affinity apps to their tools.

@Jowday
I'm wondering why you keep on using(?) the apps and posting comments like this one.

[Jowday]

50 minutes ago, Wosven said:

@Jowday
I'm wondering why you keep on using(?) the apps and posting comments like this one.

I only use Designer; I still enjoy using it for drawing a few shapes and a few bitmap based hobby posters. As a customer I am very disappointed - and annoyed.

Some day I could again use Serif software from time to time for small projects and hobby use as I did with PagePlus and sometimes DrawPlus (because I liked using them) but for now I am just a contributor here, a grim reminder that dreams and marketing must align with reality and that some costumers are far from satisfied.

I am painfully aware that many forum users would be most comfortable / only comfortable with a homogeneous forum with people they agree with but that is simply not how you build a civilization or a (software) product. 

[Gianni Becattini]

I understand the problems, however I sincerely appreciate Affinity products, especially for their spirit behind. I am a rather particular case: I am the managing director of a technology company. I am not a professional graphic designer but I personally manage all the graphics of my Company with some results. It is something like an hobby, started because no professional could meet what I expected from her/him. 

I have no budget problems for the software and I obviously pay the license for the Adobe suite. But since I have the Affinity suite, I try to use only that. And in some way, at the end of the day, I could do everything that I wanted. I understand that for a professional it can be in some way expensive to have a less powerful tool, but from my point of view Affinity has a very big potential and I believe right to encourage this Company in its adventure.

Furthermore, every time I had any relationship with Adobe, I finished angry... I also have some old (payed) CS suite: they no longer work and no one in Adobe would help me.Not so important but... shows total customers contempt.

On the contrary, any time that I need something about Affinity tools I place a question here and I immediately get a friendly, kind and competent reply.

Not bad at all.

[v_kyr]

As always with different applications one has to find and use the greatest common denominator here for a possible file format exchange. - In case of Illustrator, I would try PDF/SVG/ & clipboard based copy/paste for file sharing, also since EPS is just supported plain rudimentary in Affinity apps and since AI has and uses a bunch of custom EPS definitions, which aren't generated or supported by the Affinity apps!

[Wosven]

Professionnals use different tools and apps suiting their needs. Only the result is labelled "professionnal".

Adobe don't want people keeping using old apps because they "forget" to pay royalties for some -S-o-n-y-  Dolby licence included in their apps... if I remember correctly, and they'd rather have subscribtions too.

Edited December 27, 2020 by Wosven
Dolby, not Sony.

[PaoloT]

2 hours ago, Gianni Becattini said:

Furthermore, every time I had any relationship with Adobe, I finished angry

I have the installation DVDs of CS6 no longer being read by my drive. They no longer offer download of the software, nor a replacement program for the DVDs (probably damaged by the excessive use of ink).

Franky, this is one of those things that make users very disappointed, and not very likely to return to them. And it matches the general experience with their support for the latest couple decades.

So, I feel like you, and my hopes in a different company with a different attitude are great.

As for Adobe products being for professionals: has anybody seen their ads of the latest year? Is that professional quality?

Paolo

[Gianni Becattini]

I understand that this is off topic. Please ban me if you think so, but this question was really fun. I still have everything: CDs, DVDs and keys. My licenses are still on the Adobe site. I have the original boxes and invoices. Simply the products cannot be activated. You could say: what should it be for? They are old and cannot any longer be useful. Besides that that is a matter of mine, I am a little, stupid Mac collector. I own more than 30 of them and I should like to equip them with the original software that I expensively BOUGHT... At first they said that I had stolen the software. But how do you explain that I am on your web site as a regular user? Ehm, ehm... perhaps you... I had a very long interaction with them but at the end I... simply lost. In Italy we have thousand of laws but no Law and a legal suite against them would cost an unreasonable amount.

The point is not my insignificant problem, but the fact that big software houses have no respect at all of their Customers and, albeit a newbie user, I think I feel that Serif/Affinity is somewhat different.

[Wosven]

10 hours ago, PaoloT said:

I have the installation DVDs of CS6 no longer being read by my drive. They no longer offer download of the software, nor a replacement program for the DVDs (probably damaged by the excessive use of ink).

You can't expect a company to keep on providing old versions of softwares working on newer OSes when they're keeping on selling new versions.

They aren't different from other companies, with older versions of software compatible with older OSes, etc. They want people using their new (not so new today) subscription model, and we can understand they work toward this end, even if we don't like it.

But as you said, we can hope for other companies to provide us with complementary apps or replacements, file formats more compatible, and more common use of those apps. It was always annoying to have few choices, and feel exploited by those few companies because they knew it.

[PaoloT]

1 hour ago, Wosven said:

You can't expect a company to keep on providing old versions of softwares working on newer OSes when they're keeping on selling new versions.

I never asked something like that, and I doubt anybody is. I'm just asking the old installers to be left available for whomever wants to still use them on outdated systems. I know my company does it.

Paolo

 

[Gianni Becattini]

I am sorry I was not clear. I fully agree and nobody asks that a Company supports its products for ever. But my case is different: I am using the original hardware and the original operating systems. Adobe does not make any longer possible the activation process that fails without a reason and says "contact Adobe" (that does nothing to solve the problem).

According my opinion that is not by chance but a precise decision.

For some of them I could find a pirate copy... to do what I payed for (and for a "perpetual license", by the way...)

From my side, I decided to start canceling Adobe licenses in my Company.... I am evaluating if it is possible to use instead Serif products. Up to now I already switched globally to Affinity Publisher and will do the same for Affinity Photo. The only really missing function for us is "select subject". We will keep a CC license just for editing old documents. For Designer I am still thinking but it seems possible, because we never pass outside the documents that we use only inside our publications or inside PowerPoint. So the ai format is not critical in our case.

Furthermore, when you can forget years of practice with Adobe, I find the Affinity UI in general more modern, logic and intuitive and hope that they in the future correct the oddities and the problems that they still have, so as Affinity products have also improvements that we too often forget.

[Wosven]

We're use to keep older PC and apps too, until we notice we didn't use it for a long period like a full year, and delete them.

In the dame way, we don't use the last version of CC, but we have one licence of it if need arise.

It's certainly easier for companies to keep at least 1 CC licence and switch to other apps than for an independant.