Corel Draw 12 Import Problems

[btucker78]

Any advice on this would be great. I have downloaded and tried to import/open the EPS, SVG, and AI symbol files into Corel Draw 12. All of them fail. I either get "corrupt file" or I/O errors. By the way, these are absolutely brilliant graphics. If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know.

Thanks,

Brent

[AdrianJ]

Hi Brent,

First of all, sorry for the troubles you are having. I don't have CorelDraw to be able to test the eps or svg versions, but assume they should work ok. I have attached a single symbol in eps format for you to try. Maybe there is a problem with the way the eps and svg versions were created and the way Corel tries to import them. 

Please let me know if you can open this vector eps ok and we'll go from there.

Thanks,

Adrian

[btucker78]

I tried to open the attached eps file and it gave me the error "Problem importing file". Thanks for your response.

Brent

[AdrianJ]

Brent,

I did a bit of googling and maybe found your problem. It seems that CorelDraw should be able to work with eps, svg and maybe even ai, but you need to use the import rather than the open command. I know your first message says that you used import/open, but thought I'd check anyway, just to be sure.

Another message said "Corel will open a .eps file ...sometime it is necessary to open it as "Postscript Interpreted"

I also read that some people have better luck with Corel at importing ai files rather than eps. The problem with the symbol libraries is that they are Illustrator symbols, which may not be recognized by Corel properly, so I have attached that fish again as a normal ai vector file to see if you can import it.

This is something I found which is a hack, but might be useful: http://www.oberonplace.com/vba/drawmacros/aiclipboard/. There are two tools, the second allows you to take objects copied to the clipboard in Illustrator and paste them into CorelDraw. This would of course require you to download a trial version of Illustrator from the web.

Please let me know if any of that helps.

Adrian

[James]

I use CorelDraw 10 mostly and it is very forgiving on importing/opening files. I've brought down the IAN.eps and ai files and they have been totally unsuccessful. Also the fish.eps and fish.ai. CorelDraw throws a fit. Mayura throws a fit. Xarax throws a fit. Canvas 7 throws a fit. I am downloading the svg files but do not have much faith in them opening either. This is a shame because the pdfs are lovely and I've got a lot of uses for these graphics.

All in all I think there must be something seriously wrong with the graphics formats. Even allowing for hassles with graphics programs I have rarely had the problems I'm having with these.

regards, Erik

PS. A copy of fish.svg might be of interest since the svg bulk file is so big that I'd rather pre-test the svg file structure before clogging my drives with more electronic kludge.

regards, Erik

[AdrianJ]

Erik,

My apologies for the problems you are having. Unfortunately I don't have Corel so I haven't been able to test these problems myself. All the symbols work perfectly in Illustrator in the AI and EPS formats. I have attached the fish as an SVG, but unfortunately it is not totally complete - the SVG format loses some information. I would definitely appreciate hearing from anyone who has had success with Corel.

Regards,
Adrian

[James]

Adrian,
I have some more information on the Coreldraw problem.
Firstly, the fish.svg does not open/import properly into CD10 either. It comes in black and white and a total mess.

Now, the good news. The fish.svg opens perfectly in Inkscape 0.42.
Colours and everything look great. It is present as a single group and I cannot ungroup it, so I cannot change colours, blends etc but at least I can see it. I can save in various vector formats but none of them will open/import into CD10 properly.
I can export as fish.png (this is a bitmap format) at any defined resolution and this will import into CD10 correctly. Normal export is about 90 dpi. This looked chunky so I exported to 200 dpi and then 1000 dpi. Both went very well. The file size at 1000 dpi was 457 KB. Once you are in CD10 you can save as a cdr file as usual and then import it whenever you want to use it. The colours, blends etc all appear to be correct.
 
OK. So for people who want the symbol to use in CD, a procedure is to import into Inkscape and then export as a png which CD can use.

I do not understand yet why I cannot break up the vector group after it gets into Inkscape. I'll keep working on this.

Now I then looked at the big svg files of symbols and they will also open in Inkscape. But they are sloooooooow. Think around 10-15 minutes to get the 20 MB file of terrestrial plants in but it does go in. Again it goes in as one group and this can be ungrouped twice to give individual symbols. These can be saved individually but it is a slow and tedious way to go.

I think that the size of the files is a problem. And they seem to have been grouped multiple times. And they use blends and maybe transparencies. All of these create slowness in svg and make a nightmare for saving in other vector formats.

OK. That's it for the moment.
cheers, Erik
 

 

[AdrianJ]

Erik,

Thanks for all the information. First of all, its a pity that the SVG versions are so slow to open in Inkscape, but at least they work. Unfortunately it seems the currently SVG files can become quite large when complex gradients and transparencies are used. Your technique for converting to a PNG (raster) might be useful for some users, but I think most are looking for the features of a vector graphic. Your comments on the symbols and grouping issues makes me think that the symbol 'wrapper' being applied in Illustrator might be the problem. Please try the two attached (ai and eps) versions of the fish straight into CD and see what happens. They have had the symbol wrapper and grouping removed.

Please let me know how this goes and if it works I might have to re-create the eps and svg versions in this way.

Cheers,
Adrian

[James]

Adrian,
Neither of these two files will open/import into CD10.

Suggestions.
1. Simplify the image right down to outline. Ie no colour, no gradients etc. If we can get something into CD in vector format then we can add complexity and find out what is causing the problem. Maybe even go further and use a very simple shape like a circle etc to start.

2. I will contact Inkscape people and try and find out why the group is stuck.

3. Please send the ian-fish as svg without wrapper attached (as per the .ai and .eps files) and I will see what that does in Inkscape.

Erik

[AdrianJ]

Erik,

Let's try these.

The fish in SVG all ungrouped and no symbol wrapper - its in SVG 1.1 exported from AI CS2.
There are two circles - both from AI CS2, but exported as EPS v9 and AI v10 formats.

Lets hope this helps to narrow things down.

Cheers,
Adrian

[James]

Adrian,

Circle.ai and eps were both unsuccessful in CD10. The .ai file came in as a file corrupted and the .eps one did not come in at all.

Better luck with Inkscape. Ianfish.svg came in perfectly and was ungrouped with 252 objects. Colour etcetera was all there and gradients as well. Everything can be modified as normal. It might now be worth trying ianfish with grouping and no wrapper.

OK. That was the good news. The bad news is that I cannot get ianfish out of Inkscape in a form that CD will accept. Paths and solid colours will go out as a .ps file but gradients get the chop. Out of 252 objects a .ps save takes over only 42 objects. This is undoubdedly an Inkscape problem because its save/export functions need a lot more work.

I will ask a few more questions on the Inkscape forum specifically to see if people have had success in exporting to CD.

Erik

[AdrianJ]

Eric,

I am at a loss to explain the problems getting the circle file into CD, but it certainly suggests not so much a problem with the IAN symbols, but rather a general incompatibility between AI and CD. It's a pity that there is no way to get from Inkscape to CD either, at least at the moment.

I have attached a grouped version of the fish to see how Inkscape handles it. If this works I will make sure that the next version of the libraries doesn't have any symbol wrappers.

Let me know how it goes.
Cheers,
Adrian

[Ben]

Hi there,

I'm trying to use the symbol libraries in corel draw X3 (version 13).
I was wondering if anyone ever figured out how to import into corel. I just get an error message "I/O
read error".

Unfortunately the newer corel doesn't seem any better.


Take it easy,


Ben.

[AdrianJ]

Hi Ben,

What version of the symbols are you trying? the ai, eps or svg? Also, have you tried any of the extra versions attached to messages in this thread? Please let me know if any of these options work or not. I have also been working with someone using Freehand and we have finally had success in getting a conversion that works - basically Illustrator version 8 format. If none of these others work, let me know and I'll post a symbol in the Illustrator 8 format if you think this might work in CD.

Cheers,
AJ

[Ben]

Hi Adrian,

I've tried the SVG, EPS, and AI formats of the symbols only downloads. The SVG and EPS give an I/O error, while the AI seems to be importing something, but nothing presents on screen.

The EPS and SVG files from previous postings failed to import, yet all the AI files worked fine.

Ben.