I did not waste my precious time converting them all to .ai, because I have better things to occupy myself with. So why the hell would this feature be removed in CS6? Did it occupy a precious 1MB of space, that did not fit in the DVD???

I would urge Adobe to stop alienating its clients, and stop trying to force them to do what they want, instead of giving its clients what they need.

In the ever changing landscape of software, one of these days a new product will arrive, and even if it's not necessarily better than adobe programs, if they treat their users better, then people will prefer them.

A good example of this is the 3D animation program Blender, which year by year is gaining more and more users, in favor of big companies like Maya, 3DStudio Max or Softimage.

R

richjones98

Known Participant

Did anyone ever come up with a solution to open old Freehand files in CS6? we used to be able to take Freehand 8 files, change/add a .eps extension to them, and they'd open in CS4, but CS6 isn't so kind.

B

boyan_d

New Participant

I am also an (ex-) FreeHand user with lots of files I need to open from time to time.

I need this feature.

philipking

Inspiring

I’d like to add my voice to this chorus, having just discovered that my archives of Freehand files are no longer accessible without major hassle.

F

frankly_wtf

New Participant

Just ran into a client whose printshop is still on CS4, and has a G5 able to run FH to convert from FH8 (in a barely-running Classic mode) to FH10, which they then port over to a machine running Illy CS4 to open. Usually that works, with odd size and gradient issues, but useable.

They are a small shop, completely overwhelmed as most printshops are but have NO time to pre-convert FH artwork which clients may or may NOT ever need again. Tens of thousands of files.

Is there ANY way to script the conversion of these FH10+ files with Illy while they still run CS4 on older hardware? I'd hate to have their machines die and have to put them on a new Mac with no way to run FH.

W

wesrand

New Participant

Yes! We haven't updated to 6 yet but being able to open Freehand files is essential.

M

macasterix1

New Participant

So, we have downgraded to cs5 on Snow Leo after weeks of frustration.

If i could, i would take my money back.

5workstations upgrade costs are blown in the wind.

i dont think adobe will ever implement the good old features from freehand...

like working with text on path... the best feature in FH i think..

So what have we now... an unfinished feature, where u have to be a lucky one, your

text will positioned correct on a circle..

This feature in Illu is just crap... cant say any good word about it.

hope this will be fixed in future..

maybe......hope dies last

Z

Zyldavia

New Participant

Adobe underestimates the value of Freehand and refuses to accept it. I would rather prefer them to focus on the daily use and time-saving features instead of the fancy ones that most designers barely need.

TommmR

Participating Frequently

+1

If you don’t want to bloat AI, that’s understandable, but then at least please create some droplet/script or the like that does the job of converting *.fh files to *.ai.

Thanks in advance, Tom in Germany

The only difference between me and a madman is that I am not mad.– Salvador Dalí

thomas olbrich

Known Participant

Agree. - Also: I can't see an advantage for Adobe to quit this ability to open .fh files. Plenty of maps, illustrations etc. get lost and will barely become re-created in Illustrator.

- thomas

T

tpitt

New Participant

Just upgraded from CS5.1 to CS6, and I, too, was stunned to see this functionality removed. Clearly, I'm not the only former FreeHand user that fully expected this feature to remain, at least for another version or two.

We transitioned our production workflow from FH to AI very soon after Adobe bought Macromedia, and can't tell you how happy we were when Adobe included this feature in Illustrator. No more running FreeHand alongside Illustrator! Unfortunately, now we're running CS 5 alongside CS6 for this purpose. And yes, we save these files as Illustrator once opened, but we have so many years of FreeHand files, numbering in the thousands, that we'll be coming across them for a long time to come.

No, this isn't the end of the world, of course, but anyone working in a production environment - especially the former FH users of the world - understands how incredibly helpful this feature is in CS5.

M

MapgirlAJ1

Participating Frequently

Here here! I agree...I work primarily in CS6, but with tons of old FreeHand files, it is hard to convert everything right now when I am working on other newer projects. AND there are a few features of the old FreeHand that are extremely valuable that Illustrator STILL doesn't have, like Find and Replace Objects. I have to go to a 3rd party script to do that, and we all know how Adobe LOVES 3rd party script work nowadays...please update to allow for opening FH files!

M

melani cardiac

New Participant

Hi there, a possible solution. If you have CS 4 - you can open it easily. If not, try opening it from Coreldraw 13. This will work. Good luck!

J

Joe_Bosch

Participating Frequently

Um.... hello. The point is that I have already paid to upgrade to CS6. I don't want to have to buy another program (specially not Coreldraw) and I want to get rid of my older versions of adobe. This is no solution.

The point is that Adobe offered us an upgraded program with key features missing. This is unacceptable from a company like Adobe, and we're still not hearing anything from them about fixing it.

M

melani cardiac

New Participant

I wholeheartedly agree.

Thanks, Melani

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A

Anonymous

Does Adobe offer the ability to give an additional license for previous Illustrator releases, i.e. 5.1 or 5.5, in order to support this removed ability?
Somebody could have just bought Adobe Creative Suite CS6 from scratch, not an update, and couldn't open his tons of Freehand files archived for a dozen or more years.

Sometimes license agreement acceptation at installation process may include also the entitlement to install even the older releases of a software, without buying another license. It looks like you can do it with Microsoft. In case of such downgrade could be available, these could be also the issue to buy an older license, because it's somewhat impossible from the online frontend of software resellers or Adobe website.

M

macasterix1

New Participant

Same here.... we have still Freehand files in use for our old customers. Range 1993 till 2007..

and we need the feature in Illustrator.

So i will get back to CS5

A

Anonymous

I agree too. We have lots of original artwork in Freehand that we need to dig up from the archives somewhat frequently. Very sad to see this feature wasn't carried into CS6.

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