mday@zeno.mmwb.ucsf.edu (03/01/89)
Does anyone have any information on the PostScript file format used by Adobe Illustrator? We would like to modify some of our in-house programs such that the PostScript files they create can be read in by Illustrator. This would then allow our users to easily edit and further annotate their figures. I have looked at some sample Illustrator files, but deducing the type of PostScript that Illustrator will swallow from a few sample files is not a trivial task. Has somebody already done this? In addition, I have checked the PostScript archive server at adobe.com, for an Illustrator file specification, but it doesn't seem to contain such a document. Has anyone heard if such a document exists, or does Adobe consider the Illustrator file format to be proprietary information? Thanks for your help, ---------- Mark Day ARPA: mday@cgl.ucsf.edu UUCP: ..ucbvax!ucsfcgl!mday BITNET: mday@ucsfcgl.BITNET
garth@cs.swarthmore.edu (Garth Snyder) (03/02/89)
[ Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur. ]
In article <11401@cgl.ucsf.EDU> mday@zeno.mmwb.ucsf.edu writes:
Does anyone have any information on the PostScript file format
used by Adobe Illustrator?
I have looked at some sample Illustrator files, but deducing the
type of PostScript that Illustrator will swallow from a few sample
files is not a trivial task.
The format Illustrator uses is just plain PostScript. However, there
is a library that must first be loaded in order to interpret the
Illustrator output correctly.
You can get a copy of the library by printing a simple Illustrator
document and capturing the PostScript output to disk with the backdoor
F key trick. Then just clip off everything at the end of the file
that relates to your specific document. Voila. Notice that saved
files are _identical_ to PostScript printing dumps minus the header
code.
Once you have the header, you can read it to find out what each one or
two-letter abbreviation does. The Illustrator library is much more
readable than Apple's Laser Prep file, but still this is a non-trivial
undertaking.
Good luck!
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Garth Snyder UUCP: {bpa,liberty}!swatsun!garth
Swarthmore College ARPA/CSNET: garth@cs.swarthmore.edu
Swarthmore, PA 19081 ALSO: garth@boulder.colorado.edu
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