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Posted by John Martin Robson (Member # 1686) on :
 
Does anyone know how a Mac user should properly send ai files to a PC user………I have this guy who often sends me files from his Mac.
He sends the file……..lets call it FILE.AI
...when I receive it,the file now
looks like FILE.AI.ps…………this post script extension gets added some how.

Question what is it he/she should be doing or not doing to properly send ai files from a MAC to a PC?
 

Posted by Diane Crowther (Member # 120) on :
 
I'm not sure at what point the .ps gets added (I've seen that .ai.ps myself on occasion). Macs don't usually add extensions themselves. If it is a properly saved AI file, you should just be able to rename it on the PC (i.e. just remove the .ps part and rename it file.ai), and your software will open it. Only PCs care about the extension since most of its software doesn't actually bother to look at the file to see how it's formatted. It just checks the filename and if that's not right it will choke. The Mac, on the otherhand, usually doesn't care what the name is since it will go by how the file is actually formatted and respond accordingly.

So, changing the name will not change the format of the file. You've got nothing to loose by changing the name so your software will recognize it. And, if it was properly formatted it will open once you name it appropriately.
 

Posted by John Martin Robson (Member # 1686) on :
 
Diane

yes I tried renaming the file......cause to my surprise that actually worked one day when I tried that. But unfortunately this is not working this time........its very frustrating, I can't tell him what he should be doing.....I don't work with MACs......now I have another guy (MAC user) who sends me eps file quite freqently.......everytime he sends me a file it shows up as 2 files......one I can import the other I can't.......again this is a mystery to me........we think one file has some kind of encoded text which isn't important, and the other file is the usable vector file.

I'm sure there is some imformation out there on the dos & don't of file tranfers......probably something very simple too.

thanks for your comments
 

Posted by Diane Crowther (Member # 120) on :
 
If you can tell me what program he is working in on the Mac I may be able to tell you what to tell him to get the export right. There are a lot of ins and outs to EPS files, so I try to stick to AI format since it's usually a vector image we need anyway. Text converted to paths (or curves as the case may be) and export as the lowest AI format possible. I prefer 1.1 unless there are gradient fills or other features that require a more recent version. It could be that your fellow is saving in too high a version for what your software can read...check that too.

I also experience the two-file thing when emailing files, but I've found that the bigger one is all you need. I'm not sure what info is in the smaller one (maybe resource forks or something)...anyway, I haven't had any trouble ignoring them.

We have 3 MACS here and 4 PCS so we do a lot of cross-platform stuff. Hopefully I can help.
 

Posted by Philippe JACQUES (Member # 664) on :
 
Supposing you receive Adobe Illustrator files, the first step would be to read the Adobe recommandations at this purpose. The Adobe knowledge database provide a good introduction at this purpose

http://www.adobe.com:80/support/techdocs/b3d6.htm.


Once this done, you should care the files to transfer includes all the paths you need. I provide some recommandations in the manual of my SignofNCS plug-in. It's available to download at the bottom of the following page of my website :
http://www.magisign.com/US/SignNCS/Sign_dwld.html


A third option would be to buy a second-hand Macintosh with Adobe Illustrator. By the way, you should avoid any transfer error. You should cut from SignofNCS, my free plug-in, or from NCS MagiSign, my commercial solution.


I keep at your disposal for any further info

Hope to be helpful

Philippe JACQUES
 

Posted by ScooterX (Member # 2023) on :
 
i haven't run into the problem you have, so this is only a guess. my thought is that perhaps there is something in your email software (probably under "preferences" or something like that) which is set to automatically add file extensions to certain types of files. you might have the send try saving the Illustrator files as .eps files.

(they can do this on the Mac end by chosing FILE >> SAVE AS... >> FORMATS >> Illustrator EPS. when they press return it will then ask for which version (9.0, 7.0, etc). i now ask people to save down to version 7 because that seems the most compatible with PC software, especially with Corel.)

hope that helps.

oh, and i just thought of something else. one of the people i send my Mac AI files to is a screen printer. he uses AOL and it always corrupts my files. so now, instead of emailing them, i post them to a web page, and send him the url. he clicks to download, and everything works fine. it took me a few minutes to set up the page originally. now i just update it with the current file whenver i need to send him something new.

[ November 29, 2001: Message edited by: ScooterX ]


 


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