Question

Open CGM Files in illustrator

Forum|Forum|7 months ago
December 10, 2025
2 replies
201 views

I am unable to open .CGM files in Adobe Illustrator that were generated using Creo Illustrate.

Has anyone experienced this issue or found a solution?

The error message displayed is:
“The file is an unknown format and cannot be opened.”

Any guidance would be greatly appreciated.

Brad @ Roaring Mouse

Community Expert

What version of Illustrator are you experiencing this issue with?

I just checked and the CGM filter is definitely in the current version (v30), as well as the two versions before, although I don't know what CGM Profile it requires. Try save as a different Profile and/or file format (i.e. Text or Binary).

Your other option is to export as SVG or PDF?

creative explorer

Community Expert

@Joana Pinho Creo? A name from the past! Creo used to be in my backyard of our neighbourhood. It's now Kodak which they had bought Creo out many years ago. I am guessing that the newer Illustrator doesn't open the CGM files—you might need to roll back and test which illustrator works with that — You could simplify and save the CGM into a PDF which Illustrator can read with ease?!

m

J

Joana PinhoAuthor

Hello, thanks for the feedback.

Creo is the software used by the company, so unfortunately I don’t have any control over changing it. It doesn’t allow exporting to vector PDF, and when exporting to SVG, the files become much heavier.

Brad @ Roaring Mouse

Community Expert

I did a search on this and found many references to CGM from Creo Illustrate having issues. There wasn't a definitive solution anywhere I found, but there were mentions of ensuring that the CGM from Illustrate was saved with binary encoding and not text encoding. Also: the fact that CGM from other Creo products worked fine.

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