Converting CorelDraw (*.cdr) and old Adobe Illustrator (*ai) files to open formats

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iverson

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I share this in case it proves useful to someone:

I have a body of illustrations created in older versions of CorelDraw and/or Adobe Illustrator. The software is now unsupported in Windows or Mac, and I now use Linux. So recovering my work has been a problem. I ran Corel on Windows NT 4.0 for awhile, using a virtual machine on Mac OS X. But I really wanted to convert them to an open format, specifically Scaled Vector Graphics (*.svg) so that I could use them on Linux and edit them with InkScape. There are a number of dodgy-looking online services and a couple of dedicated freeware applications that can do the conversion--sort of. But I have found the results, at best, so-so--lots or artifacts and lost objects.

For me, the solution has turned out to be a freeware publishing program called Scribus (https://www.scribus.net/). This generates the best quality *.svg output that I have seen for old *.cdr files. The output for old *.ai files is even better. I just drag and drop the source file, wait for the conversion to complete, and the select File > Export > Save As SVG. EPS, PDF, image, and XPS output is also possible.
 
Hm, i think it is possible to open .cdr-files directly in inkscape. And for Illustratorfiles try Affinity. It‘s free.
 
Inkscape (free) Open menu lists CDR and AI (9.0 and newer). Also Adobe Illustrator SVG.
 
Ah... answered my question -> "Scribus, a page layout program for Linux, Windows, macOS, many current UNIX and *BSD systems, OS/2 Warp 4 and variants, as well as Haiku."
 
perttime said:
Inkscape (free) Open menu lists CDR and AI (9.0 and newer). Also Adobe Illustrator SVG.
Click to expand...
It does support them but results can vary a lot in quality.

For some DXF files I have converted from an obscure CAD program for examplr, Affinity does a better job.
 
Inkscape support cdr v7 which has been around for a long time. I presume the problem is with much older version.
Being on Linux, Unix etc. you can use ghostscrip via printing option to convert anything to eps and from there to any other format.
Downside might be an increase in "grained details", though.
 

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