I have recently downloaded Inscape and have started working on the graphics for a display. I have purchased a vector graphic file from Adobe Stock with an .ai extension. Inkscape manual says that it is able to import .ai file; however, when I try to do that, I get a message that it cannot open the file. What am I doing wrong? And what is the solution?

I work on Mac OS X 10.9.5; XQuartz 2.7.11 (xorg-server 1.18.4), and Inscape 0.91.

Thanking you in advance for your assistance.

Is/was the manual advice on what to do in case of failure any help?

If importing fails to work, check the file extension-errors.log located on Linux at ~/.config/inkscape/ and on Windows at %userprofile%\Application Data\Inkscape\. Any missing programs (dependencies) will be listed.

Thank you Ron. But as I mentioned earlier, I work on Mac OS X 10.9.5. I have searched that filename and can't find it on my system. I have also requested Adobe to convert the file to .eps but sadly I get the same error message even with eps extension. I don't know what else to try. I spent an hour with Adobe on the phone yesterday but they say I need to talk to Inkscape.

Regards,
Abbas

You can find out the location of the log file like this:

In Inkscape, go to Edit -> Preferences -> System. In the first text field (user config), there is the directory where the log file should live in.

In most cases, AI files that don't load directly in Inkscape had been created in the older PostScript-based Illustrator format (same file ending, different file format). You can open such files from within Inkscape (menu 'File > Open') by choosing the correct file type in Inkscape's file chooser dialog before selecting the file in the file list:

• Adobe Illustrator 8.0 and below (*.ai)

If opening with the Adobe Illustrator 8.0 and below (*.ai) file type fails too, you could try opening the AI file in Apple's Preview application, and export to PDF from there. That exported PDF file likely opens in Inkscape.

There is a rare chance that the purchased AI file contains only the proprietary code for Adobe Illustrator, and not the PDF (or PostScript) part that allows other vector editors to render its content - in that case Inkscape cannot open the file (and as far as I know neither would Apple's Preview).

Thank you SUV for taking the time to write. I don't think it is related to the version of .ai because I have tried saving it in different versions at no avail. Finally I opened the file in the illustrator and saved it in svg format and that opened in Inkscape. Inkscape could not open the EPS version of the file either. While my problem is solved, the developers may want to look at this issue because not everyone would have Adobe Illustrator installed and I myself had to download a trial version to get this working.

rakhshani wrote: Inkscape could not open the EPS version of the file either.

This is no surprise - Inkscape requires Ghostscript to be installed to open PostScript files (PS, EPS), and Ghostscript is not included in the Inkscape packages for OS X. Mac users can apply the same workaround as described earlier: open the PS or EPS file in Apple's Preview, export as PDF, and open the PDF in Inkscape.

I did test available AI files in both formats (AI 8.0 and below, AI 9.0 and later), and in general, they do open in Inkscape 0.91 on OS X (official package, tested on OS X Lion).

Edit: test cases (from Inkscape's bug tracker) added later:

• File format 'Adobe Illustrator 8.0 and below': one, two, three
  As described in the manual, these PostScript-based older AI files are imported in Inkscape using the python module of UniConvertor 1.1.5 (which itself might have known issues outside the scope of Inkscape).
• File format 'Adobe Illustrator 9.0 and above': one, two, three
  Note that no all features of AI files are supported 1:1 in Inkscape and/or SVG (known limitations exist e.g. with regard to blending modes and mesh gradients).