Color me annoyed this morning. It’s not the weather. After all, it’s a typical beautiful day here on the outskirts of Seattle — oppressive near-rain gray, just the way I like it. No, once again my frustration turns to InDesign. As you all know, I love InDesign, but love is like a magnet: It can repulse as quickly as it attracts. So forgive me a short IDSGOM, which may be educational to some readers.
The issue, you see, is the Adobe Illustrator format. Now, I was a Freehand man, myself. I loved Freehand dearly in the early ’90s. I even wrote a plug-in for Freehand 3.0 which (much) later evolved into an InDesign plug-in. But like many of us, I switched to Illustrator somewhere in the mid-90s. I can certainly understand why Adobe InDesign hasn’t historically opened Freehand files. But Illustrator… Illustrator is the grandpappy of Adobe’s happy family. Of course, InDesign can import Illustrator files. In fact, Adobe has spent countless marketing dollars telling the world that InDesign can open native Illustrator files.
But it’s not true.
InDesign cannot read the AI file format. It’s all been a sham. I can’t believe I fell for it, and I’m not sure if I’m more angry at Adobe for not allowing me to import AI files or at myself for having drunk the KoolAid and believed them without digging deeper.
But David, I hear you shouting, I import .AI files all the time! Yes, but InDesign isn’t reading the AI part… The only reason InDesign can import that file properly is that you have saved it with the Create PDF Compatible File checkbox turned on. InDesign is reading the PDF part, not the AI part! If you turn off that checkbox, the resulting file is much smaller, and while you can technically import it into InDesign, you won’t get a preview or be able to print or export it properly.
Our friend Mordy Golding wrote up a wonderful explanation of this on his Illustrator blog, but he appears to come to the conclusion that this is perfectly reasonable. If you want to import an Illustrator file, save as AI with Creative PDF Compatible File turned on; or save as PDF and turn on the Preserve Illustrator Editing Capabilities checkbox. Either way, you get a bigger-than-necessary file because you get an AI file plus a PDF (or a PDF plus an AI), all in one. Mordy, come to your senses!
Come on, Adobe: Either create a true AI file import filter that doesn’t rely on PDF or stop telling us that we can bring AI files into InDesign. I’d much prefer the former, of course. If this is a creative Suite, the apps should all talk the same language.
Along with importing native AI files sans PDF, I’d like:
- Turn on and off layers in layered TIFF files
- Turn on and off layers in AI files (with or without the PDF compatible file checkbox on)
- Import spot colors and vector info in TIFF files
- Be able to copy and paste from InDesign into Photoshop and have it act the same way as copying from Illustrator into Photoshop
- Copy and paste chunks of text from one Suite application to another, maintaining formatting (at least maintaining as much formatting as could reasonably expected — I don’t expect all apps to have all the same formatting controls as some)
- Ability to import JPEG2000 images. This is a far superior to the plain jane JPG format, and Acrobat has supported it for years. (You can export JPEG 2000 files from InDesign inside a PDF, but not import JPEG2000 files.)
- Export PSD files with layers. Or export PDF files with layers that Illustrator and Photoshop can open (with layers).
Okay, I’d better stop here before I blow a gasket. Time to hear what y’all think. Any other file format faux pas that need fixing?
This article was last modified on December 18, 2021
This article was first published on January 22, 2007
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