Vector graphis

Can Xara Designer open eps or ai files?

yes it can, however eps files can sometimes be hit and miss. I have opened a lot of eps files in Xara programs and have come across a few that didn't work.

Welcome to TalkGraphics Judy.

Some but not all. If you run into a file that won't open, there are enough members here with Illustrator who can usually help you out and save the file in a format that Xara can open.

Thanks for your answers. I buy stock photos from fotolia and see more in more offered in AI and EPS formats. Don't want to waste my money! Great community!!

Download the free 30-day trail version and try to import a few of EPS files. It's the best way to find out.

If you buy stock photographs, why would you choose AI or EPS as fileformat? IMHO are photographs rasterized, i.e. bitmapped, images and so by default not vectors. If they are deliverd as EPS it means they are EPS-files with embedded bitmaps like JPEG's (RGB) or TIFF, which might be proper CMYK....

If you buy or transfer bitmaps I'd certainly prefer TIFF or PNG depending on the content and the compression used.

Hi Michael—

Historically, this has been the same problem over at Dover Publications with their electronic clipart.

Welcome, Judy; this might be meaningful to you as well.

Encapsulated PostScript, EPS, had been a successful "container" for more than twenty years, especially on the Mac OS, for embedding bitmaps, vector drawings, and sometimes both, in a tidy little file that can be placed in a dtp document. I've seen the need for embedding graphics and photos within an EPS dwindle—especially with the popularity of the Web, but some houses such as Dover have had automated routines in place for decades, and putting their clipart into an EPS file, whether the data is vector or bitmap, was just a reflexive procedure until recently.

Xara can open an EPS file provided there is nothing but vector design work within the file; in this case, the EPS file is virtually identical in the way Xara handles it to an Illustrator file (*.ai). However, when an EPS file has a bitmap inside it, opening the file becomes problematic, because the host application (Xara in this case) is expecting actual design data, and what is within the bitmap-carrying EPS file are printer instructions and a low resolution bitmap used for placing the embedded info on a page. Sometimes it's easy to confuse this header image with the actual data inside the EPS file—it's not truly editable design infomation, but rather it's printer information.

Xara Designer is quite adept at opening just about anything that is a legitimate graphic. It can import a TIFF image with an alpha transparency channel, PDFs are very easy to import although text isn't always flawlessly imported, SVG (which is going to become increasingly important as a Web vector file format), and Xara will even import a CorelDRAW graphic straight from the clipboard.

If you regularly buy stock design work, if you seek out JPEG, PNG, and TIFF (Photoshop PSD, too), you can't go wrong with Xara. These bitmap file formats can hold resolution information so if you need to import a 300ppi photo, and the photo was tagged with this resolution, Xara reads it in, no problem.

There are some online resources I've seen for vector art such as Vector Jungle, who offer free art in EPS file format. It's hard to discern but usually a vector clipart house that offers EPS doesn't truly mean EPS but rather a generic version of the Illustrator file format. EPS files that have only vector info in them and Illustrator files are often created and distributed as one and the same because historically the Macintosh OS didn't use or care about file extensions, and the Mac had graphics before the PC.

Well, that was way too long! :)

Welcome, Judy, and happily you'll discover that the other Moderators usually provide you with "the Short Version".

My Best,

Gary