tool for browsing usual vector files - any tips?

**Holger** · 24 July 2009, 10:40 AM

hello,
I am looking for a tool that shows me thumbnails of all (most) of my hard disk saved vector images. I have a large collecting over the years, but found no tool to browse it fast.

the usual programs like ACDSee can only handle the usual formats for bitmap images, the ST Thumbnail Explorer would be great, but all version are crashing on my system and work very instable.

so I ask you, if you have any experience with a tool/file browser, that is fast and stable with Vista and shows a thumbnail preview of .eps, .ai, .pdf and maybe .svg too.

could you recommend any software, not matter if commercial or free?

thanks a lot

Holger

**Soquili** · 24 July 2009, 01:45 PM

Hi Holger,

I don't know of a utility for viewing thumbnails of .ai or .eps files. They are actually text. Open one with notepad or wordpad.

All .eps and .ai files are not created equally. Some created in Adobe Illustrator will contain an embedded thumbnail raster image, some will not.

Corel Draw created .eps and .ai files usually do not have an embedded thumbnail.

Photoshop created .eps and .ai files are actually raster images with an .eps wrapper around them.

As you may see if you take a detailed inspection of the attached, are Corel specific "commands" within the eps file.

The .ai (older versions), .ps, and .eps are actually text commands to control printers that support either Post Script or Encapsulated (sometimes referred to as Enhanced) Post Script.

**Soquili** · 24 July 2009, 02:00 PM

For comparison with the above Corel Draw created .eps, the attached image shows an .eps file created with Adobe Illustrator.

Notice the file has some Adobe specific "commands".

**Soquili** · 24 July 2009, 02:06 PM

NOTE:
Newer versions of Adobe Illustrator, I think since CS version, will save as .pdf rather than a true .ai or .eps file; unless you select to save as an older Illustrator version.

**Holger** · 24 July 2009, 03:14 PM

Thank you.
If I would not know ST Thumbnail Explorer, I would think, that there are no such file browsing tools, showing thumbnails previews of ai and eps.
but it does. (maybe only not stable on my system.).
so I thought, that there are hundreds of similar tools out there an I am the only one that don't know them...

**ZEBtoonz** · 27 July 2009, 08:40 PM

If I recall correctly, XnView allows you to browse AI files. It's freeware. The formats it says it can show are listed here http://www.xnview.com/en/formats.html#legend.