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Corel to AI conversion
- Thread starter GB2
- Start date
PDF files exported from CorelDRAW don't tend to work so well. I have the best luck saving CorelDRAW artwork as Adobe Illustrator CS6 AI files. Still, some objects may import with errors and need to be corrected. Blocks of paragraph text or artist text will often have line spacing all screwed up. Usually that can be fixed by creating a clean, new block of text and using the the eyedropper tool to apply those text properties to the junked text objects. CorelDRAW is lousy at exporting fills with transparency effects. If the object has a solid fill with transparency it will probably import correctly. If the object has a gradient fill with transparency effects that fill will be rasterized when exported. The fill has to be re-built in Illustrator. Some other gradient fills may not transfer properly to AI format.
drvinyl
New Member
Does adobe software exports gradients as gradients when exporting to a PDF?
I thought all programs when writing to PDF made gradients either rasters or lots of small banded vectors.
Haven't used adobe is years, i only use CorelDRAW
myront
Dammit, make it faster!!
I use corel 99% percent of the time. If I receive a 3rd party pdf that has the gradients made up of a thousand individual shapes with varying colors I can usually open the file in illustrator then save back out as pdf and it stays as gradient/fountain fill.
And no matter what program is used, all transparencies should be rasterized on pdf output or prior to. Sometimes I get a file that comes into corel perfectly until it has to be ungrouped.
drvinyl said:
Yes. Any vector objects containing gradient fills will have those vector fills preserved when exported in PDF format, including fills that contain varying levels of transparency. The default settings in Illustrator also append Illustrator data to PDF files (the "preserve Illustrator editing capability" setting). If the PDF is re-opened in Illustrator it will behave like any normal Illustrator file.
Despite the vector fills being preserved, a PDF that is not edit-friendly will likely have all sorts of other problems, such as lots of clipping masks objects and a bunch of other invisible objects that have no fills or strokes. Plugins like Vector First Aid can fix a lot of that junk pretty fast.
drvinyl said:
I've been using both CorelDRAW and Adobe Illustrator over 30 years. They both have unique strengths and weaknesses. Neither one has complete feature overlap over the rival. My shop has to handle a lot of corporate branding assets and those are almost always Adobe-flavored things. I'd much rather open those items in Illustrator first and then make whatever adjustments I need to make before exporting a more organized and layered AI file over to CorelDRAW. It's less of a headache that way. Some Illustrator AI and PDF files can turn into a broken mess when imported directly into CorelDRAW.
myront said:
I don't agree with that. A good, up to date large format RIP application (such as Onyx Thrive, Caldera, RasterLink Pro) will often have an Adobe certified PDF print engine. They can handle just about anything Adobe Illustrator can throw at them, including free-form gradient fills, gradients in line strokes, gradients with varying levels of transparency, etc.
Thank you so much for your help on this one....you are awesome and really saved the day for me!
The Vector Doctor
Chief Bezier Manipulator
None of these solutions work unless you have a copy of corel. There is a website called convertio that says it can convert a cdr file to other formats. I realize that it likely will not correctly convert complex fills or special effects but has anyone tried it to see how well it works with basic vector graphics from corel to say ai, pdf or eps? I don't have coreldraw to test it out but maybe this will work sometimes even if the best it can do is convert into a bitmapped image to view or trace
CDR to AI (Online & Free) — Convertio
Best way to convert your CDR to AI file in seconds. 100% free, secure and easy to use! Convertio — advanced online tool that solving any problems with any files.
convertio.co
drvinyl
New Member
Fountain transparency's are my main concern, objects that only are transparent in certain areas.
I just don't trust anything to read them correctly, at least PNG is usually a pretty acceptable quality and you know what you are getting.
drvinyl said:
What large format RIP application is your shop using? If the RIP has an Adobe PDF print engine it should be able to output PDF files generated by Adobe Illustrator or InDesign without any problem.
The PNG format is not a good fall-back option, especially for printing.
The Vector Doctor said:
Yep. One of the reasons for this situation is the CDR format is very poorly supported in rival graphics applications, if there is any support for it at all.
Vector applications like Illustrator and Affinity Designer have no file open/import filters for the CDR format. Years ago Illustrator briefly had a CDR import filter, but it was buggy and quickly removed, never to return. By buggy, I mean the filter was bad enough that it crashed my Illustrator installation utterly, to the point I had to cleanly remove Illustrator and re-install the application to make it launch and operate again.
Inkscape can import CDR files to a limited extent. Certain live effects such as objects with editable text on path elements may "explode" when imported. One unusual thing: Inkscape can open early version CDR files, such as CDR files made in versions 3 thru 5. For some ridiculously stupid reason the past several versions of CorelDRAW have not been able to open CDR files made before version 6. While Inkscape may be able to open an ancient CDR file it's still going to be a "fingers crossed" thing for what the app actually manages to open. For long time CorelDRAW users with early version CDR files the only decent alternative is having an old copy of CorelDRAW running on an old yet still operational PC or running in a virtual machine. The files can be opened and up-saved to later, more compatible versions.
I'm pretty seriously concerned about the future of Corel and its namesake CorelDRAW application. I don't think the company has done well under private equity ownership the past two decades. It got traded from one such firm (Vector Capital) to another (KKR) just recently. The past couple of so version cycles of CorelDRAW have offered little in the way of improvements or new features yet the price of the application has grown ridiculous ($269 per year for a "suite" of 2 applications). How do they expect to attract new users/customers with this approach? Long time users such as myself aren't getting any younger either. Adobe is beating them on the high end while Affinity, Canva and all sorts of other stuff is killing them on the budget side of things.
Boudica
I'm here for Educational Purposes
In the past I have been able to open cdr files in Illy, but it doesn't seem to work any more. Didn't think about ink scapes, I'll have to try it.
What I did for the OP was open it in corel draw, copy the artwork and paste it into illustrator. Then I moved the cut paths to their own layer.
What I did for the OP was open it in corel draw, copy the artwork and paste it into illustrator. Then I moved the cut paths to their own layer.
Copying>pasting between CorelDRAW and Adobe Illustrator can work okay, but it just depends on what is being copied into the clipboard.
Usually if I'm exporting art from CorelDRAW to Illustrator I'll export a CS6 version AI file (and then repair the usual errors in text objects and some fills in Illustrator). Last week I ran into trouble doing such a task using the current version of CorelDRAW (25.1.0.269). Neither the current general release version of Illustrator or its public beta version would open the AI file being created. I had to use a previous version of CorelDRAW to export the AI file successfully. I suspect there was something in that one specific CorelDRAW document that v25.1 couldn't parse to AI format correctly.
Usually if I'm exporting art from CorelDRAW to Illustrator I'll export a CS6 version AI file (and then repair the usual errors in text objects and some fills in Illustrator). Last week I ran into trouble doing such a task using the current version of CorelDRAW (25.1.0.269). Neither the current general release version of Illustrator or its public beta version would open the AI file being created. I had to use a previous version of CorelDRAW to export the AI file successfully. I suspect there was something in that one specific CorelDRAW document that v25.1 couldn't parse to AI format correctly.