Cannot open own Adobe Illustrator files

[Alex Valavanis]

From: Jason Heeris <email address hidden>
To: <email address hidden>
Subject: [inkscape] Cannot open own Adobe Illustrator files
Date: Mon, 13 Jul 2009 11:45:58 +0800
Package: inkscape
Version: 0.46-9
Severity: normal

Steps to reproduce:
1. Start Inkscape, draw anything
2. Save as/export as drawing.ai
3. Open drawing.ai

Results in the error:

"Failed to load the requested file
/home/jason_h/Projects/Eclipse/Bootloader
GUI/src/artwork/drawing-1.ai"

On the command line:

$ inkscape
Error: May not be a PDF file (continuing anyway)
Error: PDF file is damaged - attempting to reconstruct xref table...
Error: Couldn't find trailer dictionary
Error: Couldn't read xref table
** Message: PDF file was damaged and couldn't be repaired.

Cheers,
Jason Heeris

--- System information. ---
Architecture: i386
Kernel: Linux 2.6.26-2-686

Debian Release: squeeze/sid
500 testing security.debian.org
500 testing ftp.iinet.net.au
500 testing ftp.debian-unofficial.org
500 testing debian-multimedia.org
500 squeeze www.lamaresh.net

--- Package information. ---
Depends (Version) | Installed
=====================================-+-===============
libatk1.0-0 (>= 1.20.0) | 1.26.0-1
libc6 (>= 2.3.6-6~) | 2.9-12
libcairo2 (>= 1.6.0) | 1.8.6-2+b1
libcairomm-1.0-1 (>= 1.6.4) | 1.6.4-1
libfontconfig1 (>= 2.4.0) | 2.6.0-3
libfreetype6 (>= 2.2.1) | 2.3.9-4.1
libgc1c2 (>= 1:6.8-1.1) | 1:6.8-1.2
libgcc1 (>= 1:4.1.1) | 1:4.3.3-3
libgconf2-4 (>= 2.23.2) | 2.26.2-1
libglib2.0-0 (>= 2.16.0) | 2.20.1-2
libglibmm-2.4-1c2a (>= 2.19.8) | 2.20.0-1
libgnomevfs2-0 (>= 1:2.17.90) | 1:2.24.1-1
libgtk2.0-0 (>= 2.14.0) | 2.16.1-2
libgtkmm-2.4-1c2a (>= 1:2.16.0) | 1:2.16.0-2
libgtkspell0 (>= 2.0.10) | 2.0.13-2
liblcms1 (>= 1.15-1) | 1.18.dfsg-1
libpango1.0-0 (>= 1.14.0) | 1.24.0-3+b1
libpangomm-1.4-1 (>= 2.24.0) | 2.24.0-2
libpng12-0 (>= 1.2.13-4) | 1.2.35-1
libpoppler-glib4 | 0.10.6-1
libpoppler4 | 0.10.6-1
libpopt0 (>= 1.14) | 1.14-4
libsigc++-2.0-0c2a (>= 2.0.2) | 2.0.18-2
libssl0.9.8 (>= 0.9.8f-5) | 0.9.8g-16
libstdc++6 (>= 4.2.1) | 4.4.0-5
libwpd8c2a | 0.8.14-1
libwpg-0.1-1 | 0.1.3-1
libx11-6 | 2:1.2.1-1
libxft2 (>> 2.1.1) | 2.1.13-3
libxml2 (>= 2.6.27) | 2.7.3.dfsg-1
libxslt1.1 (>= 1.1.18) | 1.1.24-2
zlib1g (>= 1:1.1.4) | 1:1.2.3.3.dfsg-12

Recommends (Version) | Installed
==========================-+-===========
libwmf-bin | 0.2.8.4-6.1
pstoedit | 3.45-4+b1
imagemagick | 7:6.3.7.9.dfsg1-3
perlmagick | 7:6.3.7.9.dfsg2-1

Suggests (Version) | Installed
==================================-+-===========
dia | 0.97-2
OR dia-gnome | 0.97-2
ruby | 4.2
libgnomevfs2-extra | 1:2.24.1-1
libsvg-perl | 2.49-1
libxml-xql-perl | 0.68-4
python | 2.5.4-2
python-numpy | 1:1.1.0-3
python-lxml | 2.1.5-1
python-uniconvertor | 1.1.3-4
skencil | 0.6.17-16
ttf-bitstream-vera | 1.10-7

Message #10 received at <email address hidden> (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Alex Valavanis <email address hidden>
To: Jason Heeris <email address hidden>, <email address hidden>, <email address hidden>
Subject: Re: [inkscape] Cannot open own Adobe Illustrator files
Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2011 12:53:27 +0100
tags 536738 moreinfo
thanks

Hi Jason,

I'm going through some of the old bug reports for the Inkscape package
in Debian. You reported the following some time ago:
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=536738

Do you still experience this problem with a recent version of the
Inkscape package? Please could you attach a sample file that causes
this issue for you?

Thanks,

Alex

Message #15 received at <email address hidden> (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Alex Valavanis <email address hidden>
To: <email address hidden>
Subject: Re: [inkscape] Cannot open own Adobe Illustrator files
Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2011 12:54:04 +0100
Also, this may be a duplicate of the following upstream bug:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/570527

[su_v (suv-lp)]

Inkscape cannot save as (aka export to) AI file format.

[su_v (suv-lp)]

AI is a proprietary file format which is not supported by Inkscape as export file format. The actual bug in this report is that Inkscape fails to check for a corresponding output extension (internal feature to create output in the requested file format) in case the user manually added it to the filename in the save dialog.

Testing with older releases (on OS X 10.7.5):
- reproduced with Inkscape 0.47, 0.48.0, 0.48.1, 0.48.2
- not reproduced with Inkscape 0.48.3.1, 0.48.4, 0.48.5, 0.91

Closing as 'Fix released' with milestone 0.48.3 (Inkscape auto-appends SVG suffix, since the saved file is in SVG format; and thus the user can re-open the file without failure).

Requests to add support for exporting to proprietary AI file format should be (and likely already are) tracked separately.