Viewer for *.XAR *.CMX and *.AI

[ED]

What Irfanview (and XnView) does, it does very well. Yes Thumbs Plus does everything that Irfan(Xn)view does but Irfan(Xn)view only has 10% of the features of Thumbs Plus and only supports a fraction of the file formats supported by Thumbs.

Clearly it's no contest between the two packages.

Having used Thumbs for all these years I know the true value of this product. The money you'd pay for Thumbs is a bargin unless you don't value your time. http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

There is no one program on the planet that does it all like Thumbs Plus and if there was I would have found it by now in my 20+ years of experience at this stuff.

The BEST is good enough!

[Michael]

If IrfanView is not to your liking, you might have a look at XnView

[Mark (theKeeper)]

Ed...

Are you referring to .ai & .xar file formats?

I checked into TP out of curiosity, and it cannot view AI or Xar files. Never checked on CMX, but i think it would do that format ok. A lot of apps can view CMX files now adays.

Just for info sake too... the newest versions of IrfanView can view fonts, text files, almost any video/image file formats as well as audio formats too. It can create thumbnail galleries, do batch processing, supports photoshop compatible filters, allows to add text over/into an image, has screen capture functions, and other useful abilities as well.

It is indeed very powerful; especially for a free app. (donationware actually)

[ED]

Hi Mark... yes TP does indeed support both of the formats you questioned. Beside all the presets you can add your own and for .xar you simply add it in indicating that it's the same as .eps. Done!

I agree that Irfanview is a great program and always have it installed on my system as well. It's still junior in the graphics department when compared along side of TP

Yes Irfanview views lots of stuff but I can not do much editing or changing any of these files.

Yes Irfan view does batch conversion but not in the elagent way TP does with all it's associated secondary options. TP does batch anything. Again no contest what so ever.... not even close, but for free what would you expect.

I like Irfanview but we can never try to compare this program to the likes of Thumbs Plus. It's like Volkswagen and Ferrari. They both get you to the corner store but when it comes to performance, features and options... well you get what I mean. http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

It's just that I have yet to find something that Thumbs plus does not do for me quickly and easily so it's my first choice. I'm never disappointed nor do I ever have to look elsewhere. It's all in one app. It's my goto program for all my digital camera needs including printing in all the standard formats and multi photo page options, Web Page options and tools etc....

This note is much too small to get into great detail but until your able to use Thumbs Plus for years like I have you'll never full appreciate the power of the application. I'm still discovering new abilities even today.

One final comment... I've pushed this application very hard at times and have yet to get it to crash over the several years I've been a registered user. I don't think there is such a thing as a bug free program but I've just not come across one yet in Thumbs Plus. Believe me when I say this is must have software for any graphic professional.

The BEST is good enough!

[This message was edited by ED on January 08, 2004 at 11:34.]

[This message was edited by ED on January 08, 2004 at 12:05.]

[Mark (theKeeper)]

Ok fair enough Ed. Thanks for the extra info. I didn't know that TP allowed you to "add" formats. That's not a common thing for an app to do -- usually all possible formats are already 'turned on' so-to-speak.

No arguement over the comparison of the 2 apps either. As stated, for freeware, IView takes the cake. But for rubusk functionality, TP sounds like a formidable app.

Good stuff... seems we've learned a thing or two from this conversation. Excellent. http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

[Zeb]

ST Thumbnails Explorer is principally a vector graphics viewer program and does pretty much all formats: xar, ai, cdr, cmx, etc. It costs about $30 and is available at http://www.softfields.com/.