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Big Illustrator to Designer Problem


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While the Affinity apps are great, I'm having a serious problem opening my Illustrator files in Designer -- the layers are all there but the image is being cropped and the information on the cropped areas is lost.

Here's an example.

FantaSea.jpg.44523ce263b77737d2cb42f6a4891f88.jpg

Above is the original image as created in Illustrator.

FantaSeaCropd.thumb.jpg.341f14c3d5ce5aebd8ad2731cba7dd4c.jpg

This is the image as it opens in Designer. All image info beyond the cropped area is lost.

 

This is happening with many of my images. Is there any way to get Designer to open these images in their entirety? Otherwise many hours of meticulously crafter artwork is lost.

Any help would be appreciated.

 - Bug

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Does your Illustrator artwork extend beyond the canvas area in Illustrator? If so, that artwork will be clipped from view in Designer, assuming your art ends up within an artboard layer in Designer. Your artwork should be intact, just clipped from view.

Alternative solutions:

  1. scale your artwork to fit the size of the artboard in Designer.
  2. resize your artboard in Designer to be slightly larger than your artwork.
  3. drag your artwork out of the artboard layer in Designer. (Not sure why Affinity defines artboards as parent layers, but they do, and they have a clipping behavior.)
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Below is the image as it looks when scaled to fit the artboard and also if I copy/paste the layers into a larger artboard. Either way,, a lot of information is lost and I'm left with just the outline artwork beyond the cropped areas. It's really looking like my work is destroyed in Designer. 

FantaSeaCropd2.jpg.5a9d0c9a2f5895932970ff4f0f57abdf.jpg

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Hmmm.

I see the rectangular clipping shape. Is that something you can identify in the Designer Layers panel – some rectangular shape working to clip your art?

I know that when Designer files are opened up in Illustrator, it's not uncommon to find all kinds of unexpected clipping paths and shapes.

If you can identify any clipping paths/shapes in Designer, try to delete them, or release them from their clipping function.

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2 hours ago, Potatobug said:

While the Affinity apps are great, I'm having a serious problem opening my Illustrator files in Designer...

This is happening with many of my images. Is there any way to get Designer to open these images in their entirety? Otherwise many hours of meticulously crafter artwork is lost...

Hi Bug,

Are you using mesh fills for the gradient work?

If so, they are going to be bitmaps in Affinity software, all contained in clipping masks.

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I can't identify any cause of the rectangular shape in the layers panel and I;m not using mesh fills on any part of the image or any image. I have one question with regard to the screenshot below. This is the dialogue that appears when I open any of these files. It shows the image will be cliupped in the thumbnail but I see no way to tell Designer to increase the artboard before opening. 

 

FantaSeaCropd3.jpg.c49465a758bd6b70355245c92492136a.jpg

 

It says these are the PDF options at the top of the box. Why is it opening the files in PDF rather than the native AD file format or something more suitable like EPS or TIFF? Could the PDF format be part of the problem? 

 - Bug

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I can't read the small image you uploaded. Please upload a larger screen shot so we can read the dialog box options.

------

Are you opening up from an exported PDF?

By any chance, were your PDF export settings from Illustrator such that the art was cropped to the 8.5 x 11 artboard?

Have you tried opening up the Illustrator file directly in Designer?

If you still have Illustrator, can you enlarge the artboard in Illustrator to be larger than your art before exporting to PDF or opening directly in Designer?

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30 minutes ago, Mark Oehlschlager said:

I can't read the small image you uploaded. Please upload a larger screen shot so we can read the dialog box options.

------

Are you opening up from an exported PDF?

No. The original AI file

By any chance, were your PDF export settings from Illustrator such that the art was cropped to the 8.5 x 11 artboard?

I have no way of knowing. I have no access to the original Adobe software to view the settings.

Have you tried opening up the Illustrator file directly in Designer?

Yes. It opens it as a PDF as you see in the dialog box below..

If you still have Illustrator, can you enlarge the artboard in Illustrator to be larger than your art before exporting to PDF or opening directly in Designer?

Honestly, if I still had Illustrator, I wouldn't have found the Affinity apps. Opening in Illustrator isn't an option. If it were, I doubt I'd be having this issue,. It seems to be a problem with AD not being compatible enough with AI's native format.

FantaSeaCropd3.jpg.887326a2f0ba50444da1c45542419303.jpg

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I haven't experienced the trouble that you are.

If you're willing to attach your illustrator file, I and others on this forum can inspect the file and try to troubleshoot the problem directly.

Or, if one of the moderators of this forum is willing to offer you a link to a private dropbox account, maybe they could help you troubleshoot the file.

 

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Okay. So I downloaded your file. For some reason it came down with a .ai.ps file extension. Not sure why the .ps postscript file extension was there.

At any rate, I opened the file in my copy of Illustrator CS6.

  • I saw that your artwork was indeed drawn beyond the artboard.
  • I saved a copy of the Illustrator file, expanded the artboard beyond the extents of your art, and saved as FantaSeaRvsd_ExpandCanvass.ai
  • I opened both Illustrator files directly in Designer.
  • In the case of FantaSeaRvsd.ai, I found the same trouble you have been having. For some reason, your original art is getting cropped in unexpected ways, and data is lost.
  • In the case of FantaSeaRvsd_ExpandCanvass.ai, I was able to bring your original artwork into Designer intact, and saved this as a .afdesign file. 

I can't explain why the original file (composed on the smaller artboard) is getting destructively cropped in Designer. Perhaps one of the Serif moderators can explain that.

However, opening the file in Illustrator first, and then expanding the artboard beyond your artwork made it possible to bring your .ai file into Designer without any loss. So, to convert your entire library of Illustrator artwork, I would suggest the following solutions:

  • Find a friend or colleague with an Illustrator license who would be willing to let you sit at their workstation long enough to open all of your old files, expand the artboards beyond the extents of your art, and then saving each revised file.
  • Download a 7-day free trial of the latest version of Illustrator from Adobe, and work through all the artboard modifications for each file.
  • Purchase a one-month license of Illustrator from Adobe for $21, and work through all the artboard modifications for each file.

Attached below are the files I generated from your original.

Best of luck to you.

FantaSeaRvsd.ai

FantaSeaRvsd_ExpandCanvass.ai

FantaSeaRvsd.afdesign

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As an addendum, I just tried a few more experiments:

  • I exported the FantaSeaRvsd.ai file as an Illustrator PDF file (FantaSeaRvsd.pdf), and then opened the .pdf file in Designer. The artwork was destructively cropped and clipped to the 8.5 x 11 artboard from the original .ai file.
  • I exported the FantaSeaRvsd.ai file as an Illustrator EPS file (FantaSeaRvsd.eps), and then opened the .eps file in Designer. The artwork came through intact, but all of the hidden layers from the original Illustrator file were discarded.

Designer can't actually read the proprietary Illustrator file format. What it actually does is read the embedded PDF information. And so it may be that the PDF file information is actually responsible for the destructive clipping of your art, since it is looking for file size savings and assumes that art beyond your Illustrator artboard is expendable. That would explain why the exported PDF page exhibited the cropping when brought into Designer and why the EPS file did not exhibit the cropping problem.

Files attached below.

FantaSeaRvsd.pdf

FantaSeaRvsd.eps

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  • Staff

Hi all,

Thanks, @Mark Oehlschlager. You are indeed right. The embedded PDF in that AI does not hold any information beyond its "Artboard". When we import it, we only read the PDF stream, so anything that's not in that PDF will not be imported. An easy way to see what we import is to rename the AI file to PDF, and then open the PDF to see what you will get. 

Thanks,

Gabe. 

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  • 5 months later...

Hi All,

I am having a similar problem when i open an ai into AD. My ai file has elements that are not on the canvas as is the case with a lot of my files. When the file shows in the AD preview box it shows that parts of the design elements are off the canvas and this is how it opens. These parts are not in a clipping mask, they have literally been cropped and don't exist. I am hoping to eventually move to AD from AI but this will cause me problems as I cant go through thousands of files to make sure all elements are within the canvas area. Is there some kind of workaround that I'm not aware of?

Thanks in advance

Screenshot 2020-03-13 at 17.34.09.png

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7 minutes ago, Bubbabezier said:

Is there some kind of workaround that I'm not aware of?

Welcome to the Serif Affinity forums.

No, there's no workaround. As Gabe said a couple of posts above yours, all Affinity can read in an AI file is the embedded PDF information, and AI does not include anything in the PDF that is not within an artboard.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
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Thanks Walt,

I just hope the developers fix this issue as it's preventing me from doing the switch. I have over 20 years worth of ai files that would need to be opened in ai, then made to fit within the canvas before they can be opened in AD. Is there a way of submitting a fix request?

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23 minutes ago, Bubbabezier said:

... Is there some kind of workaround that I'm not aware of?

There is a script that can enlarge the artboards to encompass the art. Dunno how well it works on multi-artboard files. I also don't know if it can be automated to go through files unattended.

Do a Google search. You will find it and maybe other scripts that may do folders full of files unattended.

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