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Hi,

I am migrating from Illustrator and Indesign to Designer and Publisher right now and I am trying to familiarize myself with the new software. For testing purposes I want to create a document for printing and I opened up an EPS file in Designer. It's text on a background graphic. The first thing I noticed is that the graphic is not as smooth as the preview image and when opening the file with Illustrator. I see tons of little squares. It's the same when I copy the file into Publisher. Is this a matter of settings? Like a "fast & rough" view? I don't have a printer available to check if it comes out ok. (ETA: when I place the EPS file directly into Publisher it's as smooth as it should be.)

EPS file Illustrator EPS file Designer

Also, when I try to delete the text in front of the background, when I do that in Illustrator it really just deletes the text. When I do that in Designer, it leaves a white hole in the background in the shape of the text. That can't be right ?!? Am I missing something? Am I doing it wrong?

1605793926_EPSfiletextdelete.png.59656f3d81835a7fa95d949c27bdabb2.png

 

Thanks for your help!

- Jenny

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Hard to tell without seeing/inspecting the EPS file here. - However one thing which often happens with Designer when opening/importing EPS files here is, that certain curves aren't set to the correct x/y (0,0) point origins and being far off of these into negative x/y directions. You can inspect and correct this in or via the transform panel for certain layers, in case these are off of their usual position. For the text it also might be in your case that there are white text curves left over (look through the layers in the layer panel), which you would have additionally to delete then.

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I checked the transform panel, but the graphic is positioned perfectly. And there are also no white curves left after deleting the text. In fact, it looks like the whole graphic has been separated into tiny bits. Where there are different layers on top of each other in Illustrator, I have bits and pieces next to each other in Designer. It reminds me of using the Pathfinder > Divide function in Illustrator where everything gets broken apart wherever lines are intersecting.

The sample graphics above are from this EPS file: https://www.freepik.com/free-vector/elegant-bright-wavy-background_1185409.htm, but it's been the same with almost every EPS file I have opened. 

I also tried to save several EPS files in Illustrator as .ai and then open them in Designer, but that's hit or miss. One came out perfectly smooth, other are just black. 

Thinking about what these files have in common - maybe it's to do with gradients and transparencies?

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Hi @Jenny,

That EPS file has got an embedded .AI file, which we cannot read. We can only read .AI files which have PDF stream ( The compatibility tickbox ). All the features contained in the embedded AI with no PDF stream will be rasterised. If you have illustrator, try to export the file as PDF and you should be fine :)

Thanks,
Gabe. 

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2 hours ago, GabrielM said:

That EPS file has got an embedded .AI file ...

Obviously ...

eps_contents.jpg.47393b5b6dd04fe8b8c66832731a48c0.jpg

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Wrong screenshot posted above, it was just the HEX view instead of UTF-8 text view, which (the later) showed much more details here. - However that EPS file opens in AD with a bunch of image layers with nested curve layers and looks at least better than in GraphicsConverter or Apple Preview here.

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6 minutes ago, GabrielM said:

I thought so :) Sublime does not seem to open it with UTF-8 by default. 

Yes you have to force it for EPS files to show them up with UTF-8 encoding instead ...

sublime_utf8.thumb.jpg.0a535c76201fc61d8e28ae25024b81a9.jpg

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  • 1 month later...

Sorry, you kinda lost me with these screenshots :38_worried:

Basically what you are saying is that without opening these files in Illustrator first I can't do anything with them in AD? But that's making AD obsolete and my goal is to completely replace Illustrator since it probably won't be compatible with the next OS update.

And here I thought that EPS is the go-to, universal format for people who can't open AI files...

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3 minutes ago, Jenny said:

If I download or buy vector files in EPS format I want to be able to open those without having to use any Adobe software.

If those EPS have got an embedded AI, we will not be able to fully open them. That's why I'm saying it's beyond our control. 

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1 hour ago, Jenny said:

But that's the thing. I don't want to open AI files. If I download or buy vector files in EPS format I want to be able to open those without having to use any Adobe software. 

Then you need to make sure that the EPS files are compatible with Affinity. That may mean asking the supplier, and specifically inquiring whether they require use of AI for processing or if they are compatible with non-Adobe applications.

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Hi Jenny,
Welcome to Affinity Forums :)
EPS is an old (limited) format. Most of the effects is you see on files sold though stock sites are not supported by the EPS specs (blend effects, transparency, mesh fills etc). They can be opened correctly in Adobe Illustrator because - as explained above - it embeds proprietary Ai data in the EPS which is what it loads when it opens the EPS files. That's why all files are checked against it when submitted to stock sites for validation. This is a practise that continues up to today. There isn't much we can do about it until stock site starts to offer other (more recent) formats/alternatives.

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Thanks for explaining this, guys. Obviously I never had to deal with the specifics before. 

Can I ask - if EPS is an old format and AI is basically bound to Adobe - what file format would be the better choice? And if I have a file like the one above, is there a way to open it in Illustrator and save it in a way that I would be able to open it properly in Designer?

I have SO many files, I wanna make sure that I won't lose any once Illustrator stops working on my Macbook.

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11 hours ago, Jenny said:

is there a way to open it in Illustrator and save it in a way that I would be able to open it properly in Designer?

It was already mentioned earlier:

On 12/10/2018 at 11:20 AM, GabrielM said:

If you have illustrator, try to export the file as PDF and you should be fine :)

 

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Depends on where you live, but I would think that this might be a consumer protection issue. In the UK it might fall foul of the Trades Description Act. Offering an eps file should imply that it is eps, neither more nor less and should not include proprietary material that renders it unusable. (Unless this is made explicit at the point of sale.)

John

Windows 10, Affinity Photo 1.10.5 Designer 1.10.5 and Publisher 1.10.5 (mainly Photo), now ex-Adobe CC

CPU: AMD A6-3670. RAM: 16 GB DDR3 @ 666MHz, Graphics: 2047MB NVIDIA GeForce GT 630

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On 12/10/2018 at 11:20 AM, GabrielM said:

If you have illustrator, try to export the file as PDF and you should be fine :)

I tried that - opened the EPS file above in Illustrator, saved it as PDF, then opened it in AD, but I have the exact same problems than I had when opening the EPS directly in AD. I tried different settings when saving the PDF and they had different effects when opening in AD, but each time the file is basically unusable :-(

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I've had a play and something werid is going on. I've exported that as a PDF, re-opened it in Illustrator and I got an error message. If you OK that, it seems to be Ok. 

image.png

However, when we open the same PDF, it's not right. I have logged this with our developers for further investigations. 

Thanks,

Gabe. 

 

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