How to open . ai or .cdr files?

[Jorge Martínez]

One of the virtues of Knoppix is that it can open almost any Windows files.

However, I couldn't find how to open some graphic files such as .ai or .cdr. I will appreciate any help.

[UnderScore]

This is what I have found.


http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedor.../msg00033.html

> One thing. Is there an application in Linux that can edit this file type?
sketech can open and save .ai files

Sketch - > Skencil http://www.nongnu.org/skencil/


http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=9658&page=2

As an example, in Inkscape we have a functionality that allows us to automatically pipe a file through a filter program. We found a script called ill2svg.pl that is able to take an Adobe Illustrator file on STDIN, and emits the corresponding SVG to STDOUT. This AI import feature was a very frequent request by users before we added it, and being able to reuse an existing Open Source tool saved us a *lot* of effort. Similarly, we've been able to leverage Sketch, dia, and other programs by running them from the command-line to convert their native file formats into SVG.

The other way Inkscape handles file formats is through libraries such as libpng. Formal libraries are generally better than command-line tools, and so are preferred, but they're more work to create so are not as common.

More file format converters (either command-line or libraries) and improvements to the existing converters, would be an extremely valuable way to improve interoperability between Open Source drawing applications. There is a dire need for maintainers of the command-line converters; many of the scripts out there are essentially unmaintained, and really need developers to improve them. The ill2svg.pl program mentioned above, for example, needs a number of improvements in order to read in a wider variety of AI files. A Visio(VDX)-to-SVG converter could also be extremely beneficial. Reimplementing the more popular converters as C libraries would give us even more flexibility and power as we move forward.

[Jorge Martínez]

Thank you.

Skencil would certainly do the trick. But I would have two difficulties.

I don't know how to call an external software from Knoppix, in itself a closed universe. There is no Skencil specifically for Knoppix. There is an unofficial version for Debian, that perhaps would be suitable.

Skencil would require a Python interpreter and perhaps an input filter, adding up to my chores in a field I'm not familiar with.

If possible, I would prefer a more straightforward solution.

Regards.