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stickleback6
New Participant
May 7, 2012
Question

Opening Freehand files

  • May 7, 2012
  • 5 replies
  • 55573 views

Hello

I saee that my Illustrator CS5 has a script which is for opening Freehand files  - I click and it saks me to select the FH file to open - but they are all greyed out... is this s a problem with Lion or is there a workaround?

Thanks

      5 replies

      A
      Anonymous
      June 24, 2016

      Hi,

      I use an external HDD ssd running on SNOW leopard with FreeHand MX.

      When I need to work on FreeHand I restart on it.

      My computer is a 24" iMac running on Lion, I think that ANY osx (Yosemite for example) will run fine.

      Have a nice day.

      maeric
      maeric
      Participating Frequently
      June 24, 2016

      roberts59099742 wrote:

      Hi,

      I use an external HDD ssd running on SNOW leopard with FreeHand MX.

      When I need to work on FreeHand I restart on it.

      My computer is a 24" iMac running on Lion, I think that ANY osx (Yosemite for example) will run fine.

      Have a nice day.

      Same here.

      My SSD is wicked fast to open and I use a menu app called QuickBoot that jumps from Yosemite to Snow Leopard. My finished FreeHand work can be dropped onto the Desktop of my main drive to use Ai-PS-ID CC apps.

      I save my individual FH files as PDF to open in Ai or use Tensai's plugin to batch-open FreeHand files in Illustrator CC.

      FreeHand | Twitter

      N
      nilodorinc
      New Participant
      July 1, 2015

      If you can open the file in Freehand and export it as an illustrator 5.x file (no other version will work), it will open the file in any illustrator and with editable text blocks.

      V
      vickyjs-2007
      New Participant
      July 31, 2012

      Does Illustrator CS6 still open freehand files that have been saved as .ai rather than .eps? (I know each page gets saved as an individual .ai file but can live with that) The 'export' option is to save as an illustrator .7 version on my copy of freehand MX (version 11 I think)

      Wondering what to do as my old macbook is falling apart, I'm still using freehand, need a new mac but can't run freehand on the new mac OS so will finally have to change to illustrator and trying to decide wether to go for CS5 or CS6 - just don't know what to do? I work for a small non profit organistion so money is a huge issue and I need to make a good choice. I somehow need to salvage the freehand work but upgrade for the future.

      Any advice would be much appreciated PLEASE

      Thanks

      W
      Wade_Zimmerman1
      Inspiring
      July 31, 2012

      >ai files are .ai files and as far as I know any .ai file can be opened by AI CS 6.

      I you wish to have someone open one of the files you save as .ai v7 post one and I will open it on my Mac. And let you know.

      G
      Gustavo Del Vechio
      Inspiring
      May 7, 2012

      Hi stickleback6

      Illustrator CS5 supports opening Freehand formats *.fh7, *.fh8, *.fh9, *.fh10, *.fh11, *.ft11

      Illustrator CS6 has no support any longer for Freehand formats.

      What´s the Freehand´s version of the file your are trying to open in Illustrator CS5?


      Gustavo.

        maeric
        maeric
        Participating Frequently
        May 8, 2012

        Gustavo, how do you know this for sure?

        G
        Gustavo Del Vechio
        Inspiring
        May 15, 2012

        @Doc__But I'm not asking them to resurect FreeHand! I'm merely asking that they reinstate a functionality that I, perhaps naively, assumed would be ongoing, so that the people who emigrated from FreeHand (the 'old' country) to illustrator (the 'new world') would still have recourse to their work from a previous life!

        Couldn't agree more, with all your other sentiments


        Can anyone send me please 1 freehand document to make a test?

        gustavodelvechio@gmail.com

        Thank you

        Gustavo.

        D
        DocPixel-BMW
        Participating Frequently
        May 7, 2012

        In Illustrator CS5 you can just open the files, no need for a script.

        As for Illy CS6: it will no longer open Freehand files of any kind. They must be first saved as an EPS from Freehand, then open in Illustrator.

        TIP: for people with Macs, better keep an old system running as long as possible on Snow Leopard with CS5. Freehand is officially dead

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