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Open Freehand files with Illustrator CS6

Community Beginner ,
Jun 28, 2012 Jun 28, 2012

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Please bring back this ability. It worked in CS 5.1.

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correct answers 1 Correct answer

Explorer , Jul 07, 2014 Jul 07, 2014

You can now load FreeHand files in CS6, CC and 2014 using the FreeHand Interface Plugin:

Tensai AI Plugins

You do need access to a FreeHand Import plugin from CS3-CS5. We are trying to get Adobe to make the CS5 plugin available as a free download.


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Engaged ,
Jun 28, 2012 Jun 28, 2012

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I was recently delighted to find that CS6 could easily open my old (15 years) Corel Draw files.

If it can do that, why can't it open Freehand files?

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Community Beginner ,
Oct 31, 2012 Oct 31, 2012

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It is unbelievable how the war between Freehand and Illustrator has not stopped even under the name of the same company. If Adobe wants users to forget  Freehand  they should make things easier to help them moving on. The removal of this feature does not help at all.

PD: Did you guys see their new "New package file" feature in CS6? Hilarious. This supposed new feature has been in Freehand for 7 years at least...ant it seems they are now catching up! Good for us!

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Explorer ,
Oct 31, 2012 Oct 31, 2012

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Exactly, I've used 'collect for output' out of Freehand for what feels like a decade.  They just now have the package feature and to my knowledge, only creative cloud users have that feature!

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Community Beginner ,
Aug 13, 2012 Aug 13, 2012

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Oh Please Please Please Yes - we have 23 years of files in Freehand (many hundreds of thousands) and last year began the painful process of Freehand to Illustrator CS4.  It is so very important to continue to translate files as needed. To be sure, many simple items can be just done in Illustrator but as so many folks have technical material that requires ongoing living document status, "Dear Adobe" do not take away our ability to do our jobs. 

Please restore the ability to open Freehand files in CS6. We beg you.

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Explorer ,
Aug 16, 2012 Aug 16, 2012

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I agree. Just installed CS6 today and luckily still kept my CS5.5.

We also have years and years worth of freehand files on our servers that we often need to open up and translate to Illustrator files. Please please fix this! Telling clients that we can't open their files anymore because Adobe changed their programs would simply not suffice 🙂

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Explorer ,
Aug 21, 2012 Aug 21, 2012

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Do people from Adobe actually read these forums?

If so can we at least find out if something is being done about this, or should I stop my upgrades to CS6 and save my company a load of money?

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Adobe Employee ,
May 06, 2015 May 06, 2015

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Thank you Joe for your valuable suggestion.

Regarding question "Do people from Adobe actually read these forums?"

Yes, we regularly visit to this forum and try hard to resolve as much problems and queries as possible.


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Community Beginner ,
Aug 23, 2012 Aug 23, 2012

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Agreed. We have 20 years worth of Freehand files we need to access and convert. This isn't just a once-in-a-while occurance, it's daily. I'm testing out the CS6 trial, but if there's no conversion capability, we'll be sticking with CS5 for the forseeable future.

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New Here ,
Jan 10, 2013 Jan 10, 2013

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I have a solutiojn of the problem:

Open FreeHand and open a FreeHand-file

File >> Export  and save as Illustrator-file.

This file can be opened in Illustrator 6

A lot of success

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Explorer ,
Jan 10, 2013 Jan 10, 2013

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Freehand is not supported in Lion or Mountain Lion so you can't open Freehand if you have the latest OS.  I have a legacy machine that has Snow Leopard and Freehand but it also has CS4 AI so I just open the files that way.  The issue is wanting to run the latest OS and Apps.  That said, this solution doesn't work for those with the latest OS and CS6. 

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New Here ,
Aug 31, 2012 Aug 31, 2012

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Same here. I have tone of files and most of my clients that have all their sources in Freehand...

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Guest
Sep 04, 2012 Sep 04, 2012

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I have 18 years of Freehand Files that cannot be opened in CS6 as well.  Big part of our business.  We used Freehand because it was better than AI and could do much more from a page layout and vector illustration app. Was very dissapointed when Adobe trashed the application.  AI is much better now with multi page layous, but is still arduously slow in comparision.  PLEASE keep the ability to open the docs Adobe.....

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Community Beginner ,
Sep 05, 2012 Sep 05, 2012

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It is unbelievable that, all of a sudden, you just can't open old Freehand files in Illustrator anymore.

For me, it is unacceptable!

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New Here ,
Sep 12, 2012 Sep 12, 2012

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Ok, so I´m not alone with this huge problem (We have only thousands of those fh-files in our archive). Only way now is to go back to CS5.5!

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Explorer ,
Sep 18, 2012 Sep 18, 2012

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I agree. We have thousands of Freehand files dating back more than ten years. We never know when an old client or project becomes live again - it is EXTEMELY important to be able to open those old files.

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Guest
Oct 03, 2012 Oct 03, 2012

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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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Community Beginner ,
Oct 08, 2012 Oct 08, 2012

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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

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Guest
Oct 15, 2012 Oct 15, 2012

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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.

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New Here ,
Nov 01, 2012 Nov 01, 2012

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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!

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Explorer ,
Nov 01, 2012 Nov 01, 2012

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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.

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New Here ,
Nov 01, 2012 Nov 01, 2012

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I wholeheartedly agree.

Thanks, Melani

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021 559 1042 (f)

082 371 7629 (c)

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Explorer ,
Jan 10, 2013 Jan 10, 2013

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EXACTLY!

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Explorer ,
Jan 10, 2013 Jan 10, 2013

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If you consider keeping multiple versions of the application or an older OS it works but the issue here is that Adobe abondened Freehand and now Freehand files and it creating a lot of pain for a lot of people.

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Community Beginner ,
Dec 16, 2012 Dec 16, 2012

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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.

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