making Xara & Illustrator play nice
Posted: Aug 10, 2009 2:04 pm
I have zero interest in a fight about which program is better, so if that's why you are reading this, stop reading.
Recently, I've been frustrated by the fact that some projects require I submit files in Illustrator and some require Xara. I have previously drawn all of my maps with Illustrator CS3, and would like to continue doing so, but need to be able to deliver functional .XAR files as well. I have Xara Xtreme Pro 5.
I've tried opening my AI files in Xara, which usually imports them just fine; it expands the pattern brushes in the process (no big deal) and apparently converts my pattern swatches (for lithology) to a white bitmap object, which is annoying but probably workaround-able. However, when I open the file in Xara in order to save as an .XAR, the layer architecture has been completely removed; it gives me a layer titled "text extracted from PDF" and one titled "imported from PDF" in which it has lumped all of the separate non-text layers from my original AI file into a single layer.
Is there a file format that works functionally in both programs? Is there an export format from one to the other where I won't lose anything?
There seem to be too many egos and/or old habits at play for the caving community as a whole to ever adopt a standard, but I'm not interested in having to learn multiple cave survey programs and multiple illustration programs in order to be a productive cartographer. I don't want to stop working with either group, and (frankly) I'm getting tired to listening to diatribes from the group who didn't win the "which standard will Jeff adopt?" contest.
Recently, I've been frustrated by the fact that some projects require I submit files in Illustrator and some require Xara. I have previously drawn all of my maps with Illustrator CS3, and would like to continue doing so, but need to be able to deliver functional .XAR files as well. I have Xara Xtreme Pro 5.
I've tried opening my AI files in Xara, which usually imports them just fine; it expands the pattern brushes in the process (no big deal) and apparently converts my pattern swatches (for lithology) to a white bitmap object, which is annoying but probably workaround-able. However, when I open the file in Xara in order to save as an .XAR, the layer architecture has been completely removed; it gives me a layer titled "text extracted from PDF" and one titled "imported from PDF" in which it has lumped all of the separate non-text layers from my original AI file into a single layer.
Is there a file format that works functionally in both programs? Is there an export format from one to the other where I won't lose anything?
There seem to be too many egos and/or old habits at play for the caving community as a whole to ever adopt a standard, but I'm not interested in having to learn multiple cave survey programs and multiple illustration programs in order to be a productive cartographer. I don't want to stop working with either group, and (frankly) I'm getting tired to listening to diatribes from the group who didn't win the "which standard will Jeff adopt?" contest.