befehr Posted May 17, 2018 Share Posted May 17, 2018 When opening Adobe Illustrator files that contain grouped objects, those object are not grouped when opening in AD as they are in Illustrator. There are groups, but they seem to be random. Is this normal behavior of AD? If so, will there be a fix in the future? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alfred Posted May 17, 2018 Share Posted May 17, 2018 The Affinity apps don’t read the native Illustrator data in the file. They can only read the PDF stream, so you’re limited to whatever is included there. Quote Alfred Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.4.1 (iPad 7th gen) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
befehr Posted May 17, 2018 Author Share Posted May 17, 2018 I know what you are saying, and that makes sense, however when I open the same files in CorelDRAW the grouped object are maintained. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeW Posted May 17, 2018 Share Posted May 17, 2018 With an Illustrator pdf, I believe CD opens the AI private data. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
befehr Posted May 17, 2018 Author Share Posted May 17, 2018 2 minutes ago, MikeW said: With an Illustrator pdf, I believe CD opens the AI private data. The result is the same whether it's the native ai or pdf. So, you are saying that CorelDRAW accesses data the AD does not? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
firstdefence Posted May 17, 2018 Share Posted May 17, 2018 As an exercise... Created an ai file Created a few box shapes Selected the box shapes and duplicated them I selected the original boxes and grouped them I created a New Layer and a new Sub Layer I dragged the duplicate boxes to the Sub Layer I saved the file and opened it in Affinity Designer AD displayed the group as a Layer with Sub Layers representing the boxes It did the same for the New Layer and the Sub Layer Ad doesn't distinguish between a Group or a sub layer. Illustrator. Affinity Designer. Quote iMac 27" 2019 Somona 14.3.1, iMac 27" Affinity Designer, Photo & Publisher V1 & V2, Adobe, Inkscape, Vectorstyler, Blender, C4D, Sketchup + more... XP-Pen Artist-22E, - iPad Pro 12.9 (Please refrain from licking the screen while using this forum) Affinity Help - Affinity Desktop Tutorials - Feedback - FAQ - most asked questions Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeW Posted May 17, 2018 Share Posted May 17, 2018 2 hours ago, befehr said: The result is the same whether it's the native ai or pdf. So, you are saying that CorelDRAW accesses data the AD does not? Yes, I am saying that. CD is able to open AI files directly. How well it does depends on the contents or construction though. It's pretty good at it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
befehr Posted May 17, 2018 Author Share Posted May 17, 2018 41 minutes ago, firstdefence said: As an exercise... Created an ai file Created a few box shapes Selected the box shapes and duplicated them I selected the original boxes and grouped them I created a New Layer and a new Sub Layer I dragged the duplicate boxes to the Sub Layer I saved the file and opened it in Affinity Designer AD displayed the group as a Layer with Sub Layers representing the boxes It did the same for the New Layer and the Sub Layer Ad doesn't distinguish between a Group or a sub layer. Illustrator. Affinity Designer. I did something similar, creating groups of circles. On one layer, in one group I have a group within a group. When I open in AD, there are no groupings. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
firstdefence Posted May 17, 2018 Share Posted May 17, 2018 This is the file I made: Grouped or not.ai Quote iMac 27" 2019 Somona 14.3.1, iMac 27" Affinity Designer, Photo & Publisher V1 & V2, Adobe, Inkscape, Vectorstyler, Blender, C4D, Sketchup + more... XP-Pen Artist-22E, - iPad Pro 12.9 (Please refrain from licking the screen while using this forum) Affinity Help - Affinity Desktop Tutorials - Feedback - FAQ - most asked questions Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
befehr Posted May 17, 2018 Author Share Posted May 17, 2018 As predicted (on my end anyway), AD does recognize layers but not grouping. CorelDRAW does recognize both. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
firstdefence Posted May 18, 2018 Share Posted May 18, 2018 Corel Draw, Illustrator, and Affinity Designer are all propriety formats that give their user certain benefits, un fortunately they also make it difficult to translate from one program to another, honouring Layers layouts and grouping is one thing but Corel Draw doesn't always play nice with AI files and will remove certain features that have been done in AI. Sometimes it's about finding a solution, albeit a bit clumsy and Child Layers seem to be that solution, you could export as an SVG. Update: removed Child Layer. In Illustrator SVG opened in Affinity Designer Grouped or not copy.svg Quote iMac 27" 2019 Somona 14.3.1, iMac 27" Affinity Designer, Photo & Publisher V1 & V2, Adobe, Inkscape, Vectorstyler, Blender, C4D, Sketchup + more... XP-Pen Artist-22E, - iPad Pro 12.9 (Please refrain from licking the screen while using this forum) Affinity Help - Affinity Desktop Tutorials - Feedback - FAQ - most asked questions Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
befehr Posted May 18, 2018 Author Share Posted May 18, 2018 Well, back to my original post. If other programs can read ai better, or maybe I should say "more reliably", then perhaps Affinity could add that to their list of improvements. :-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abarkalo Posted October 25, 2021 Share Posted October 25, 2021 this is always a big issue for me. I buy a lot of graphics stock art - objects that are places very closed together, and when opening in AD directly and becomes incredibly tedious to re-group, especially when there is no lasso select tool in AD. However, one quick work-around: open the file in Illustrator and save as SVG. Then open the SVG in AD - this works for me. The only issue is that are often issues between EPS, AI and SVG files. For instance SVG is the common design language that both AD and AI read with good fidelity. But AI has different shading and coloring that is specifically only to AI. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Bruce Posted October 25, 2021 Share Posted October 25, 2021 7 minutes ago, abarkalo said: ... I buy a lot of graphics stock art - objects that are places very closed together, and when opening in AD... Perhaps a word to the stock art owners as well as here. Quote Mac Pro (Late 2013) Mac OS 12.7.4 Affinity Designer 2.4.1 | Affinity Photo 2.4.1 | Affinity Publisher 2.4.1 | Beta versions as they appear. I have never mastered color management, period, so I cannot help with that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abarkalo Posted October 26, 2021 Share Posted October 26, 2021 what do the stock art owners have to do with this? For the most part, the stock art is fine if it opens in Illustrator, and it's grouped nicely and laid out in smaller artboards. Nothing wrong there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.