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affinity designer export to illustrator


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Some time ago I acquired the affinity software and I am was very pleased with its operation, unfortunately,  my work team they still do not decide to change and continue with the Adobe suite. In order not to make the story long, it would seem appropriate for me to add an "section" of export to Adobe Illustrator to affinity designer software.It would help me too much to export directly because my colleagues and boss use A.I and it is difficult to pass them the files that I generate in A.F

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This is not an easy issue. Nowadays the AI file is a PDF file only serving as an envelope for the actual AI file contents. While the PDF part is well documented and easy to read/write, the AI stream is proprietary and undocumented, including an undisclosed compression method, making it harder to be read/written. AfD can read AI files by reading the PDF envelope, not the AI stream in it (but files must be saved with the option to create a PDF compatible file, even thou it is always a PDF file or you will only see garbage after importing). It would require a large effort of reverse engineering to allow any other application (not just AfD) to export AI files so I wouldn't expect this any time soon (although someone might be try and solve it if a plugin architecture were available).

Right now what you can do is export the files you work with your team in another format supported by both applications like EPS, SVG or even PDF.

architect student (5/10) · designer · developer · geek
Affinity Publisher 2.1.1 / Affinity Designer 2.1.1 / Affinity Photo 2.1.1
Windows 11 Pro #22H2 / Dell G15 AMD Ryzen 5 32GB RAM

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I have found the most accurate conversion of an AfDesign file to illustrator is using SVG as an export type, with RASTERSIZE set to NOTHING in the "more options" panel on export. You will inevitably lose some effects in translation (drop shadow, gaussian blurs etc will be rasterized since there is no other option), but with SVG as the file type, you will get good text, vector, outline, fill and clipping mask accuracy when opening in AI. As with any proprietary format (illustrator, freehand, corel draw, etc) there will ALWAYS be some effects lost in translation, but the Affinity SVG to illustrator is a very good translation.  

EPS rasterizes EVERYTHING out of AD, and PDF, Illustrator cant even open those right, so forget it.

Art director by day, illustrator by night: Check Out My Shutterstock Gallery

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