FreeHand conversion app

[FFH Mark]

https://twitter.com/FreeFreeHand

[[Jongware]]

Yup, that coder would be me. Making good progress, but a bit slow (I'm only doing this in my spare time).

Please note that Von is extremely realistic in what would be supported in a converter -- see his diagram at the bottom of http://forums.adobe.com/thread/1181535?tstart=0

It's simply not possible to convert many of FH's features to native EPS -- blends, lens, sketch, blur, shadow. In addition, the text part of the file format is such a mess that it might very well not be worth the effort.

[FFH Mark]

[[Jongware]]

> Von is pretty specific in his needs because his art is basically illustration ..

Indeed. It's also the reason I am pretty confident I can pull that part off.

There are other problems with text, apart from being a mess. My target output is EPS, and that is not a text-friendly format, to say the least. It does not support text formatting, kerning, line spacing -- not even paragraphs, only continuous streams of text.

The best way to deal with this would be converting the file to a format that does support these things natively. Something like Illustrator's internal format (... then again, the general vibe on this forum seems to be anti-Illy).

Anyone got a better suggestion? (Please keep in mind that I won't want to examine yet another weird file format just to write to. So please, don't ask for a conversion to native Quark XPress or InDesign.)

A third option, besides Dumbed-Down EPS, or someone elses native format, is to convert to a private format in a reasonably easy to parse way: as an annotated XML file, for example. That way it can be an intermediary for others to read.

As for progress: in the Adobe forums I mentioned that I was looking in applying color to the line art. That works since yesterday evening I can now convert plain colored artwork to EPS and place the result immediately into InDesign. I'll be looking next to adding a few other color attributes.

[FFH Mark]

[nuno_tuna]

Hi guys!

My "two cents" on the matter.
I work on Apple machines since '90 and I've been importing and exporting files in almost every software available.
Every once and a while the import/export methods change so we - mostly graphic professionals that depend on workflow but have to bare with these software inter-communication policies - have to adapt a search for solutions, sometimes outside the software apps.
I work with Freehand since version 3. I always felt Illustrator was an Adobe's show-off app that always had too many functions for a vector app.
Nevertheless I recon usefulness in (as we like to call it) Adobe Irritator several of its simpler functions like the "Live Trace" and the "Outline Stroke" which I use a lot.
So. Freehand has been my vector weapon of choice all these years but I couldn't put Illustrator aside so I started using the Export>adobe Illustrator 7.x, from Freehand to Illustrator, and the "save as>Adobe Illustrator (ai)>Illustrator 8", from Illustrator back to Freehand. I had no problems in most of the files except when they included "paste inside" pics, Photoshop paths on TIFs and vector gradients.

"Macintosh EPS" exported files assure the gradient part and keep the vector properties if you need to reopen it on Freehand. Colours might turn out slightly faded if you open it on Photoshop but you'll recover true colours if you use the "Curves" pop-up menu.

I don't have much use for Jongware's converter app for now but I think it's an excellent complementary tool.

Sorry about the "testament". I hope my testimony will serve anyone in need.

Cheers
Tuna

[FFH Mark]