EPS export and import options

[jclements]

EPS Export Formats
.AI Illustrator EPS
.EPS Illustrator EPS
.EPS Xara Xtreme EPS


1- Trying to find what the differences are between these options. When to use and not to use.

[Soquili]

Hi John,

The Designer Pro help file

Exporting as Designer Pro EPS
This saves the document as an EPS file. It is the recommended EPS format for exporting to (for example) DTP programs, as all information is retained.

Exporting as ArtWorks EPS
This saves the document so that you can load it into ArtWorks, Computer Concepts' illustration program for Acorn RISC computers. Files in this format cannot be loaded into other programs on the PC. Some features, such as transparency, do not exist on ArtWorks.

Exporting as Illustrator EPS
This is recommended for older versions of Adobe Illustrator (for version 9 onwards we recommend using PDF export, see above).

EPS files are mostly plain text so you can examine them using notepad or other text editor to see the difference.

The Xara X EPS export includes an embedded thumbnail image at the beginning.

There are many variations in EPS, as many as there are printer manufacturers and graphics software developers.

[gwpriester]

Sheesh John. For someone who has been in the business this long I should expect you to be answering this question.

I would strongly recommend PDF. The PDF filters are more current and more reliable. And PDF files are for the most part interchangeable with Adobe Illustrator.

EPS files can contain both text, bitmaps and vector objects. They are intended for printing and not for editing. EPS files are typically "placed" in publishing applications such as QuarkXPress or Adobe InDesign and output to a postscript output device or converted to film negatives for the creation of printing plates.

[jclements]

Thanks guys:

Bill, I missed that info in the help file when I did a search.

The two separate export options for Illustrator: .AI Illustrator EPS and .EPS Illustrator EPS is what really puzzled me. And when I tried importing the Xara-created .AI file back into Xara using the vanilla Adobe Illustrator (*.ai, *.eps) import filter, I'd get errors or it wouldn't work at all. Adobe Illustrator 7.0 (*.ai, *.eps) and Adobe Illustrator 8.0 (*.ai, *.eps) filters seemed to work okay with the same file.

Gary, I was aware that EPS had various flavors; thus, I've avoided EPS in the past . ... but now it looks I will have more demand for graphics to be placed into InDesign so I was trying to see what advantages there were with the variety of exports options Xara has. PDF seems to be the best per your input and the little bit of trial and error I've gone through

[Soquili]

John I only see one Illustrator export option. The .ai and .eps are actually one file type, with two different extensions.

[Albacore]

The AI export gives the Legacy file type version 8 as you pointed out and if your output from Xara is all vector shapes it is very reliable. When you bring in ID to the equation PDF is the better option since version CS3 you can place PDF's easily and I have found the .eps not the way to go in ID although you don't have the same problem with the clipping mask if you want to edit the import in ID. I do newsletters by the score in ID in my job and do the graphics in Xara mostly then import into ID and I don't have any real problems and would now not think of .eps as away of placing graphics in ID. The only time I see .eps asked for is online but Adobe have got that sorted by the use Adobe Connect which uses a browser base to transfer files, have meetings etc..

[gwpriester]

John - I am pretty sure you can place a PDF. OK I just tried it and it works fine.

I exported the same set of objects as Illustrator *.eps and got the resulting error message. This may simply mean that Designer is not creating a preview image. But the PDF works fine and so why bother with the EPS?

The AI extension creates a file that can also be edited. But I got the same error message in InDesign CS5.

FWIW - I was able to open edit both my exported EPS and AI files in Illustrator so the files are good and will most likely output from InDesign but you won't have a preview.

So, PDF is the way to go.

[jclements]

Thanks guys:

The two separate export options for Illustrator: ".AI Illustrator EPS and .EPS Illustrator EPS is what really puzzled me. ...

This was is what was mentioned in the Help File.

"....advantages there were with the variety of EPS exports options Xara has" is what I should have written.