# File format parity

> **Last reviewed:** 2026-10-10 · **Last updated:** 2026-11-01 · **Change:** minor (native format: dynamic symbols, #4938) · **Target:** Adobe Illustrator 2026 (30.x)

Every format Illustrator opens, places, saves or exports, against VectorCraft's format table (`FORMATS`,
`OPEN_EXTS`, `PLACE_EXTS` in `crates/engine/src/cmd/fileio/formats.rs`). Illustrator's list comes from its public
documentation (helpx "file formats" and Save/Export pages), not from its installed bundle: the clean-room rule
forbids reading the install. Part of [target-app-parity.md](target-app-parity.md).

**Fidelity** is estimated unless a test is named. Test sources: unit and property tests per crate
(`crates/svg/tests`, `crates/pdf/tests`, `crates/format/tests/prop_format.rs`), import fuzzing
(`crates/engine/tests/import_fuzz.rs`), the Affinity corpus (`cargo xtask corpus --affinity`, 51 pinned public
files, CI job `affinity-corpus.yml`). There is **no real-world Illustrator corpus**: test inputs are written
from the public specifications, and users' own `.ai` files are used locally only.

## Summary

| | Illustrator | VectorCraft | Notes |
|---|---:|---:|---|
| Formats opened or placed | ~30 | 28 | missing: FreeHand, CorelDRAW, DWG, HEIC/HEIF, PICT, Pixar, PS |
| Formats saved (Save As) | 6 (AI, AIT, PDF, EPS, SVG, SVGZ) | 6 + native | `.ai` written PDF-compatible (no Illustrator editing data) or as legacy version 7 (layers and groups, one artboard per file) |
| Formats exported | ~16 | 17 | missing: DWG, 3D (OBJ/USDA/glTF); extra: GIF/PNG-8 palette export, DXF up to 2018, layered PSD |
| **Overall (weighted by use)** | | **~75%** | `.ai` and PDF dominate the weighting |

EPS editing-data follow-up (2026-10-16): both mesh-corner layouts (with and without opacity)
read in RGB, CMYK and gray. Vector opacity-mask art and its Clip, Invert, Disabled and Linked
flags are retained. Winding-declared legacy compound member groups keep their shared paint even
when followed by `9 () XW`. Fully rasterized print pages are compared using the same filtered
minification for both representations; the existing error thresholds and ordinary vector-page
checks remain. Synthetic regressions reject truncated meshes, non-unit rational weights,
unbalanced mask art, unknown mask operators, missing artwork and wrong page framing. Real
user files remain local; no SVG replacement or tracing is used. Small rendering differences
continue to produce import warnings.

## The main format: `.ai`

The format that decides beta. Illustrator's `.ai` is a PDF (or, for old files, PostScript) plus Illustrator's
private editing data. VectorCraft:

- **Reads** the PDF page (vectors, text, images, colour, transparency, layers via optional content) and the
  *structure* of the editing data (below). Opens Illustrator EPS the same way through its own PostScript
  Level 3 interpreter. A `.ai` in PostScript form (versions 3 to 8, and what Rhino and other CAD apps
  write) is its own editing data: it opens through the layers its program has, compared with its page
  when the program runs, from the layers alone when it names its prolog without including it (#1027), and with its art on one
  layer when it has no layers (Illustrator 3, and image editors' exported paths: storytold/photocraft#6036).
  RGB in the PDF page's `ICCBased` spaces keeps the file's numbers in a `.ai` (the `uncalibrated_rgb`
  import option, on for editor documents, off for PDFs), so `.ai` files tagged with a non-sRGB RGB profile
  open with different, unconverted RGB colours than before.
  A PDF-compatible `.ai` opens on its PDF part's trim boxes (its artboards), the bleed boxes round them
  becoming the document's bleed, so art in the bleed shows outside the artboard, within the bleed guide (#1266).
  A PDF saved with its editing data (`AIPDFPrivateData`) opens the same way.
  The swatches of a version 7 `.ai` palette, which carry no names, come in named by their spot color, gradient or
  values.
  When the PDF part of either can't be read (a stream the import refuses), the file opens from its editing
  data alone, with the PDF part's error as its first warning, and without the bleed and File Info the PDF
  part would give (part of #4366).
- **Writes** a PDF-compatible `.ai` (Save As › `ai`): Illustrator opens it as plain art. It never writes
  Illustrator's private editing data, which is undocumented.
- **Writes** a legacy `.ai` of version 7 (Save As › `ai` › Version: Legacy (version 7), `aiVersion: "7"`): the
  PostScript form, from the published *Adobe Illustrator File Format Specification* version 7.0
  ([PRONOM fmt/423](https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/PRONOM/fmt/423)), which apps reading `.ai` open with its
  structure (#868). It keeps layers (names, order, visibility, lock), groups, compound paths, clipping groups,
  solid colours, linear and radial gradients and RGB images. The format has one artboard: each artboard chosen in
  the options dialog's artboard picker (thumbnails to check, default all) is a file of its own,
  `{name}-{artboard}.ai` when there are several. It has no transparency: objects are written opaque, and images
  with see-through pixels, opacity or a blending mode are flattened (an opaque image of themselves and the art
  under them, clipped to where they show; that art stays) or omitted (Transparent Images,
  `transparentImages: "flatten"|"omit"`). Type is written as editable text objects (point type, area type and type
  on a path, with their fonts' PostScript names, sizes, colours, alignment, indents, leading, tracking and
  scaling), which the reading app sets in those fonts; characters outside Windows-1252, vertical type, ruby, inline
  graphics and gradient or pattern fills make that type outlines, and so do rotated characters (Character Rotation,
  which a version 7 text object can't hold: the outlines keep the rotation, and the type is no longer editable text
  in the file), and Text: Outlines (`outlineText: true`) writes
  all type as outlines. The format can hide only layers: hidden objects go to a hidden layer of their own above
  their layer, are omitted, or are made visible (Hidden Objects, `hiddenObjects: "layer"|"omit"|"visible"`).
  Sublayers become groups; appearances, effects and brushes are expanded; object names are left out; layer
  names, spot color and gradient names and the title are written in Windows-1252, with `?` for characters outside
  it (two spot colors or two gradients whose names become the same are numbered).
  The file is also a PostScript program that runs: its prolog, a procedure set of VectorCraft's own written from
  the PostScript Language Reference, gives the format's operators their meaning, so it prints and previews
  (gradients filled with their first stop's colour, type left to the apps that read the format). VectorCraft
  opens a file with that prolog from its program, as the format.
- **Known failures in users' files:** layer structure flattened or multiplied (#951: 109 layers instead of
  14; #868: round trip with Illustrator 2018 loses layers and groups), some files 4× slower to open since the
  editing data is read whole (#758), live effects, brushes and symbols come in as their drawn look (#637;
  pattern fills are read since #1025); legacy `.ai` without the prolog opens since #1027, its legacy type
  (`To` … `TO`) since #868; guides open as ruler guides and guide paths since #5057 (#779).
  14; #868: round trip with Illustrator 2018 loses layers and groups), guides and non-printing construction
  lines lost (#779), some files 4× slower to open since the editing data is read whole (#758), live effects
  that are not read or have settings that are not read, brushes and symbols come in as their drawn look (#637; pattern fills are read since #1025); legacy `.ai`
  without the prolog opens since #1027, its legacy type (`To` … `TO`) since #868.
  lines lost (#779), some files 4× slower to open since the editing data is read whole (#758), live effects,
  brushes and symbols come in as their drawn look (#637; pattern fills are read since #1025); legacy `.ai`
  without the prolog opens since #1027, its legacy type (`To` … `TO`) since #868, with its paragraphs' letter
  and word spacing (`TC`, `TW`), hanging punctuation (`Tq`) and hyphenation (`Th`).
- Estimate: **~65%** for real exchange with Illustrator users (open: ~75%; save: PDF-compatible, or legacy
  version 7 with layers and groups; not yet tested by users who hand files back).
  Closing the open-side issues: 10–20 h with users' files.

### Illustrator's private editing data

the app's own editing copy of a file (an EPS after its `%%EOF`, a `.ai`'s `AIPrivateData` streams, a PDF's `AIPDFPrivateData` streams when it was saved with the editing data (#868), Zstandard or zlib, the EPS's in ASCII85) is not documented as a whole. VectorCraft reads its structure: layers and sublayers (names, order, visibility, lock, printing, preview, dimming, colour), groups as they were nested, compound paths (painted by their last path, or the last painted one, with the paths of groups inside them kept as their paths: #1410), clipping groups and layer clipping, object names, hidden and locked objects, fills and strokes (grey, CMYK, RGB, named and spot colours, spot colours defined in Lab with their Lab values (#1032), global process colours as global swatches at their tint), linear and radial gradients, pattern fills with their patterns as pattern swatches (#1025), opacity, blend modes, isolation and knockout, embedded images where their matrix puts them, rotated ones too (#2269), with their alpha channel (CMYK images keep their ink amounts, as they do when a `.ai` opens from its PDF part, and an alpha channel that hides part of a CMYK image becomes a grayscale opacity mask), placed (linked) files as linked images in their place, each showing the low-resolution preview the file keeps of it until its file is found or relinked in the Links panel (#1264), guides, and every artboard where it is. Objects on Path groups open live, with their path, their objects in order along it, Pivot and Rotate; one with a dragged spacing or other options opens as a plain group. A gradient with stops in the middle runs its whole ramp across its shape, and a gradient object does not pass its fill to the next path (#1390). An object whose art style is one fill and one stroke at most (solid colours, its own gradient, a variable-width profile) with an Outer Glow or Drop Shadow comes in as itself with them; one with more, other effects, a brush or dashes aligned to corners comes in as its drawn look (a group named after it). Type keeps its art style as a live appearance whatever its stack, so it can be retyped: each fill and stroke of the style's stack (solid colours, gradients and pattern fills, placed as the drawn look places them) with its own opacity, blend mode and effects, the effects on the whole object, and where the characters paint among them; the effects read are Warp, Offset Path, Transform (with copies), Drop Shadow, Outer Glow, Feather, Gaussian Blur and Bas Relief (its settings at their defaults), and a style with others keeps the type's drawn look. The page's drawing of such a style isn't held to look like VectorCraft's where its drawn look lay. Gradients take their matrix (`Xm`, radials and skewed ones too), focal point and the order of stops sharing a ramp point; gradient meshes, a clipping path's own fill and the artboards' names are read too. `editingData: "always"` (`convert --editing-data`) opens a `.ai` or an Illustrator EPS from its editing data even where it draws differently from its page, which can be older, with a note. Type is made from the file's text document, whole and editable, shown or not: point type (its frame's matrix, which newer files leave out when it is neither turned nor scaled, read as none), area type (a story in several frames as threaded type) and type on a path, with its characters, fonts, size, leading, tracking, scaling, baseline shift, fill and stroke (grey, RGB or CMYK), alignment, indents and paragraph spacing (a character attribute a run doesn't set comes from its character style, then the style that one is based on, then the document's defaults); the page's drawing of it (often in pieces) is left out. Vertical type keeps its orientation, its columns from right to left, and a run set to Tate-chu-yoko keeps that setting. When it makes the type of every text object that shows, the page's type is only compared with it, each text object keeps its own group, frame and layer, and a line break inside a paragraph stays one. Where it can't make a text object's type (a frame of another kind), that text object takes the page's type where the text document puts its lines, or else what is left of the page's type in painting order (no group around it); the page's type where made type draws stays that type's, and hidden type is left out with a note. Kerning, underline and the other character and paragraph options aren't read yet. A `.ai` saved without PDF compatibility (a placeholder page) opens from its editing data alone, its point type, area type and type on a path made from the text document. A `.ai` whose PDF part shows only text isn't taken for that placeholder when its page states an art, trim or bleed box: it opens from its editing data alone where that reads, else from its PDF part (#1387). A `.ai` whose PDF part draws nothing at all (an empty page, with or without those boxes) opens from its editing data alone where that reads too: there is no page art to check its layers against, and the empty page would lose all of it. Text objects with an appearance keep their own text and frame, type of hidden layers stays hidden, and type on later artboards lands on its text objects (#1391); area type whose frame is too short for a line of the fallback font shows its first line (the frame is made taller, with a warning in the open result) (#1392). Symbols, pattern fills whose pattern it can't read, placed files the data keeps no preview of and anything else it doesn't read make the file come in as its page (on a layer that doesn't show, they are left out of that layer), with a warning saying what. An unread object on a shown layer whose box can be found instead comes in as a group of the page's objects inside that box, named after it, with the rest of the layers and groups kept and a warning listing what came in as the page's art; the file still comes in as its page when live art or another unread object shares that page art, when the object spans two artboards, or when the page art doesn't carry its transparency (#4806). The layers' art is also compared with the page (by lightness, so colours written as their CMYK equivalents compare alike, and by whether a pixel is inked at all); the page is used when they differ by more than 5% (away from type, when all the type is made from the text document), where one draws an object the other doesn't (away from type, whose lines may be laid out afresh), and when an EPS whose page is its art's box has art printed outside it (#735). An EPS whose page is its art's box keeps that page when it comes in through its layers, not the editing data's artboard, and a text object counts as drawn by the page by its colours, not only its lightness, so a red stroke stacked over a dark red one stays (#1102). `textAs: "outlines"` opens a `.ai` whose type shows from its PDF part, which has the outlines; `editingData: false` opens any of them as its page or PDF part only, for print pipelines (#735). A file whose import left something out (hidden text, art or layers) is never written over by an export or Save As to its own path unless `acknowledgeLoss: true` (`convert --replace-lossy`), so the original keeps what the document lacks. Where a `.ai` can't be read that way (or its layers are turned off in the import options), we read its PDF-compatible part, so Illustrator-only live objects arrive as appearance, and plain groups arrive ungrouped: that part draws each object on its own and marks only layers, clipping groups and groups with opacity, blending or a mask (those come back). Art outside the artboards isn't in that part at all (Illustrator's PDF part leaves it out), so it doesn't open; the import says so in a note (#472). Its pages still go where the editing data puts the artboards (a grid stays a grid), with the art on each, when it has as many artboards as pages, of the same sizes (#1068). A `.ai` whose PDF part's pages are cropped to its art (each page the box of all the art, which is the editing data's bounding box) instead of its artboards opens from its layers, with its own artboards, where they draw as that page does. Its pages are laid out so that art one of them draws past its artboard (notes beside a design, which the part doesn't clip) doesn't lie over the page before it in the row, where it was taken for that page's art: the check against the editing data then found art its layers don't have there and opened the file as its PDF part, without the art outside the artboards. That part also has no paragraphs: area type is written line by line, and comes back as area type only where its font is installed and lays the lines out with the same breaks, else as a point type object per line (#508). Art off the page that a PDF does draw opens on the pasteboard.
the app's own editing copy of a file (an EPS after its `%%EOF`, a `.ai`'s `AIPrivateData` streams, a PDF's `AIPDFPrivateData` streams when it was saved with the editing data (#868), Zstandard or zlib, the EPS's in ASCII85) is not documented as a whole. VectorCraft reads its structure: layers and sublayers (names, order, visibility, lock, printing, preview, dimming, colour), groups as they were nested, compound paths (painted by their last path, or the last painted one, with the paths of groups inside them kept as their paths: #1410), clipping groups and layer clipping, object names, hidden and locked objects, fills and strokes (grey, CMYK, RGB, named and spot colours, spot colours defined in Lab with their Lab values (#1032), global process colours as global swatches at their tint), linear and radial gradients, pattern fills with their patterns as pattern swatches (#1025), opacity, blend modes, isolation and knockout, embedded images where their matrix puts them, rotated ones too (#2269), with their alpha channel (CMYK images keep their ink amounts, as they do when a `.ai` opens from its PDF part, and an alpha channel that hides part of a CMYK image becomes a grayscale opacity mask), placed (linked) files as linked images in their place, each showing the low-resolution preview the file keeps of it until its file is found or relinked in the Links panel (#1264), guides, and every artboard where it is. A gradient with stops in the middle runs its whole ramp across its shape, and a gradient object does not pass its fill to the next path (#1390). An object whose art style is one fill and one stroke at most (solid colours, its own gradient, a variable-width profile) with an Outer Glow or Drop Shadow comes in as itself with them; one with more, other effects, a brush or dashes aligned to corners comes in as its drawn look (a group named after it). Type keeps its art style as a live appearance whatever its stack, so it can be retyped: each fill and stroke of the style's stack (solid colours, gradients and pattern fills, placed as the drawn look places them) with its own opacity, blend mode and effects, the effects on the whole object, and where the characters paint among them; the effects read are Warp, Offset Path, Transform (with copies), Drop Shadow, Outer Glow, Feather, Gaussian Blur and Bas Relief (its settings at their defaults), and a style with others keeps the type's drawn look. The page's drawing of such a style isn't held to look like VectorCraft's where its drawn look lay. Gradients take their matrix (`Xm`, radials and skewed ones too), focal point and the order of stops sharing a ramp point; gradient meshes, a clipping path's own fill and the artboards' names are read too. `editingData: "always"` (`convert --editing-data`) opens a `.ai` or an Illustrator EPS from its editing data even where it draws differently from its page, which can be older, with a note. Type is made from the file's text document, whole and editable, shown or not: point type (its frame's matrix, which newer files leave out when it is neither turned nor scaled, read as none), area type (a story in several frames as threaded type) and type on a path, with its characters, fonts, size, leading, tracking, scaling, baseline shift, fill and stroke (grey, RGB or CMYK), alignment, indents and paragraph spacing (a character attribute a run doesn't set comes from its character style, then the style that one is based on, then the document's defaults); area type keeps its frame's Area Type Options rows and columns, the gutter between rows and the gutter between columns, and its first baseline (Fixed, Cap Height, Leading or x Height) with its minimum; the page's drawing of it (often in pieces) is left out. When it makes the type of every text object that shows, the page's type is only compared with it, each text object keeps its own group, frame and layer, and a line break inside a paragraph stays one. Where it can't make a text object's type (a frame of another kind), that text object takes the page's type where the text document puts its lines, or else what is left of the page's type in painting order (no group around it); the page's type where made type draws stays that type's, and hidden type is left out with a note. Kerning, underline and the other character and paragraph options aren't read yet. A `.ai` saved without PDF compatibility (a placeholder page) opens from its editing data alone, its point type, area type and type on a path made from the text document. A `.ai` whose PDF part shows only text isn't taken for that placeholder when its page states an art, trim or bleed box: it opens from its editing data alone where that reads, else from its PDF part (#1387). A `.ai` whose PDF part draws nothing at all (an empty page, with or without those boxes) opens from its editing data alone where that reads too: there is no page art to check its layers against, and the empty page would lose all of it. Text objects with an appearance keep their own text and frame, type of hidden layers stays hidden, and type on later artboards lands on its text objects (#1391); area type whose frame is too short for a line of the fallback font shows its first line (the frame is made taller, with a warning in the open result) (#1392). Symbols, pattern fills whose pattern it can't read, placed files the data keeps no preview of and anything else it doesn't read make the file come in as its page (on a layer that doesn't show, they are left out of that layer), with a warning saying what. An unread object on a shown layer whose box can be found instead comes in as a group of the page's objects inside that box, named after it, with the rest of the layers and groups kept and a warning listing what came in as the page's art; the file still comes in as its page when live art or another unread object shares that page art, when the object spans two artboards, or when the page art doesn't carry its transparency (#4806). The layers' art is also compared with the page (by lightness, so colours written as their CMYK equivalents compare alike, and by whether a pixel is inked at all); the page is used when they differ by more than 5% (away from type, when all the type is made from the text document), where one draws an object the other doesn't (away from type, whose lines may be laid out afresh), and when an EPS whose page is its art's box has art printed outside it (#735). An EPS whose page is its art's box keeps that page when it comes in through its layers, not the editing data's artboard, and a text object counts as drawn by the page by its colours, not only its lightness, so a red stroke stacked over a dark red one stays (#1102). `textAs: "outlines"` opens a `.ai` whose type shows from its PDF part, which has the outlines; `editingData: false` opens any of them as its page or PDF part only, for print pipelines (#735). A file whose import left something out (hidden text, art or layers) is never written over by an export or Save As to its own path unless `acknowledgeLoss: true` (`convert --replace-lossy`), so the original keeps what the document lacks. Where a `.ai` can't be read that way (or its layers are turned off in the import options), we read its PDF-compatible part, so Illustrator-only live objects arrive as appearance, and plain groups arrive ungrouped: that part draws each object on its own and marks only layers, clipping groups and groups with opacity, blending or a mask (those come back). Art outside the artboards isn't in that part at all (Illustrator's PDF part leaves it out), so it doesn't open; the import says so in a note (#472). Its pages still go where the editing data puts the artboards (a grid stays a grid), with the art on each, when it has as many artboards as pages, of the same sizes (#1068). A `.ai` whose PDF part's pages are cropped to its art (each page the box of all the art, which is the editing data's bounding box) instead of its artboards opens from its layers, with its own artboards, where they draw as that page does. Its pages are laid out so that art one of them draws past its artboard (notes beside a design, which the part doesn't clip) doesn't lie over the page before it in the row, where it was taken for that page's art: the check against the editing data then found art its layers don't have there and opened the file as its PDF part, without the art outside the artboards. That part also has no paragraphs: area type is written line by line, and comes back as area type only where its font is installed and lays the lines out with the same breaks, else as a point type object per line (#508). Art off the page that a PDF does draw opens on the pasteboard.
the app's own editing copy of a file (an EPS after its `%%EOF`, a `.ai`'s `AIPrivateData` streams, a PDF's `AIPDFPrivateData` streams when it was saved with the editing data (#868), Zstandard or zlib, the EPS's in ASCII85) is not documented as a whole. VectorCraft reads its structure: layers and sublayers (names, order, visibility, lock, printing, preview, dimming, colour), groups as they were nested, compound paths (painted by their last path, or the last painted one, with the paths of groups inside them kept as their paths: #1410), clipping groups and layer clipping, object names, hidden and locked objects, fills and strokes (grey, CMYK, RGB, named and spot colours, spot colours defined in Lab with their Lab values (#1032), global process colours as global swatches at their tint), linear and radial gradients, pattern fills with their patterns as pattern swatches (#1025), opacity, blend modes, isolation and knockout, embedded images where their matrix puts them, rotated ones too (#2269), with their alpha channel (CMYK images keep their ink amounts, as they do when a `.ai` opens from its PDF part, and an alpha channel that hides part of a CMYK image becomes a grayscale opacity mask), placed (linked) files as linked images in their place, each showing the low-resolution preview the file keeps of it until its file is found or relinked in the Links panel (#1264), guides, and every artboard where it is. Objects on Path groups open live, with their path, their objects in order along it, Pivot and Rotate; one with a dragged spacing or other options opens as a plain group. A gradient with stops in the middle runs its whole ramp across its shape, and a gradient object does not pass its fill to the next path (#1390). An object whose art style is one fill and one stroke at most (solid colours, its own gradient, a variable-width profile) with an Outer Glow or Drop Shadow comes in as itself with them; one with more, other effects, a brush or dashes aligned to corners comes in as its drawn look (a group named after it). Type keeps its art style as a live appearance whatever its stack, so it can be retyped: each fill and stroke of the style's stack (solid colours, gradients and pattern fills, placed as the drawn look places them) with its own opacity, blend mode and effects, the effects on the whole object, and where the characters paint among them; the effects read are Warp, Offset Path, Transform (with copies), Drop Shadow, Outer Glow, Feather, Gaussian Blur and Bas Relief (its settings at their defaults), and a style with others keeps the type's drawn look. The page's drawing of such a style isn't held to look like VectorCraft's where its drawn look lay. Gradients take their matrix (`Xm`, radials and skewed ones too), focal point and the order of stops sharing a ramp point; gradient meshes, a clipping path's own fill and the artboards' names are read too. `editingData: "always"` (`convert --editing-data`) opens a `.ai` or an Illustrator EPS from its editing data even where it draws differently from its page, which can be older, with a note. Type is made from the file's text document, whole and editable, shown or not: point type (its frame's matrix, which newer files leave out when it is neither turned nor scaled, read as none), area type (a story in several frames as threaded type) and type on a path, with its characters, fonts, size, leading, tracking, scaling, baseline shift, fill and stroke (grey, RGB or CMYK), alignment, indents and paragraph spacing (a character attribute a run doesn't set comes from its character style, then the style that one is based on, then the document's defaults); the page's drawing of it (often in pieces) is left out. When it makes the type of every text object that shows, the page's type is only compared with it, each text object keeps its own group, frame and layer, and a line break inside a paragraph stays one. Where it can't make a text object's type (a frame of another kind), that text object takes the page's type where the text document puts its lines, or else what is left of the page's type in painting order (no group around it); the page's type where made type draws stays that type's, and hidden type is left out with a note. Text wrap is read too: an object whose dictionary has the wrap options (offset and Invert Wrap), or any graphic of a legacy wraparound group (`*w` … `*W`, before or after its type, with no offset), is a wrap object, and area type below it in its layer flows around it when the file opens, threaded type included (#2763). Kerning, underline and the other character and paragraph options aren't read yet. A `.ai` saved without PDF compatibility (a placeholder page) opens from its editing data alone, its point type, area type and type on a path made from the text document. A `.ai` whose PDF part shows only text isn't taken for that placeholder when its page states an art, trim or bleed box: it opens from its editing data alone where that reads, else from its PDF part (#1387). A `.ai` whose PDF part draws nothing at all (an empty page, with or without those boxes) opens from its editing data alone where that reads too: there is no page art to check its layers against, and the empty page would lose all of it. Text objects with an appearance keep their own text and frame, type of hidden layers stays hidden, and type on later artboards lands on its text objects (#1391); area type whose frame is too short for a line of the fallback font shows its first line (the frame is made taller, with a warning in the open result) (#1392). Symbols, pattern fills whose pattern it can't read, placed files the data keeps no preview of and anything else it doesn't read make the file come in as its page (on a layer that doesn't show, they are left out of that layer), with a warning saying what. An unread object on a shown layer whose box can be found instead comes in as a group of the page's objects inside that box, named after it, with the rest of the layers and groups kept and a warning listing what came in as the page's art; the file still comes in as its page when live art or another unread object shares that page art, when the object spans two artboards, or when the page art doesn't carry its transparency (#4806). The layers' art is also compared with the page (by lightness, so colours written as their CMYK equivalents compare alike, and by whether a pixel is inked at all); the page is used when they differ by more than 5% (away from type, when all the type is made from the text document), where one draws an object the other doesn't (away from type, whose lines may be laid out afresh), and when an EPS whose page is its art's box has art printed outside it (#735). An EPS whose page is its art's box keeps that page when it comes in through its layers, not the editing data's artboard, and a text object counts as drawn by the page by its colours, not only its lightness, so a red stroke stacked over a dark red one stays (#1102). `textAs: "outlines"` opens a `.ai` whose type shows from its PDF part, which has the outlines; `editingData: false` opens any of them as its page or PDF part only, for print pipelines (#735). A file whose import left something out (hidden text, art or layers) is never written over by an export or Save As to its own path unless `acknowledgeLoss: true` (`convert --replace-lossy`), so the original keeps what the document lacks. Where a `.ai` can't be read that way (or its layers are turned off in the import options), we read its PDF-compatible part, so Illustrator-only live objects arrive as appearance, and plain groups arrive ungrouped: that part draws each object on its own and marks only layers, clipping groups and groups with opacity, blending or a mask (those come back). Art outside the artboards isn't in that part at all (Illustrator's PDF part leaves it out), so it doesn't open; the import says so in a note (#472). Its pages still go where the editing data puts the artboards (a grid stays a grid), with the art on each, when it has as many artboards as pages, of the same sizes (#1068). A `.ai` whose PDF part's pages are cropped to its art (each page the box of all the art, which is the editing data's bounding box) instead of its artboards opens from its layers, with its own artboards, where they draw as that page does. Its pages are laid out so that art one of them draws past its artboard (notes beside a design, which the part doesn't clip) doesn't lie over the page before it in the row, where it was taken for that page's art: the check against the editing data then found art its layers don't have there and opened the file as its PDF part, without the art outside the artboards. That part also has no paragraphs: area type is written line by line, and comes back as area type only where its font is installed and lays the lines out with the same breaks, else as a point type object per line (#508). Art off the page that a PDF does draw opens on the pasteboard.
the app's own editing copy of a file (an EPS after its `%%EOF`, a `.ai`'s `AIPrivateData` streams, a PDF's `AIPDFPrivateData` streams when it was saved with the editing data (#868), Zstandard or zlib, the EPS's in ASCII85) is not documented as a whole. VectorCraft reads its structure: layers and sublayers (names, order, visibility, lock, printing, preview, dimming, colour), groups as they were nested, compound paths (painted by their last path, or the last painted one, with the paths of groups inside them kept as their paths: #1410), clipping groups and layer clipping, object names, hidden and locked objects, fills and strokes (grey, CMYK, RGB, named and spot colours, spot colours defined in Lab with their Lab values (#1032), global process colours as global swatches at their tint), linear and radial gradients, pattern fills with their patterns as pattern swatches (#1025), opacity, blend modes, isolation and knockout, embedded images where their matrix puts them, rotated ones too (#2269), with their alpha channel (CMYK images keep their ink amounts, as they do when a `.ai` opens from its PDF part, and an alpha channel that hides part of a CMYK image becomes a grayscale opacity mask), placed (linked) files as linked images in their place, each showing the low-resolution preview the file keeps of it until its file is found or relinked in the Links panel (#1264), guides, and every artboard where it is. Objects on Path groups open live, with their path, their objects in order along it, Pivot and Rotate; one with a dragged spacing or other options opens as a plain group. A gradient with stops in the middle runs its whole ramp across its shape, and a gradient object does not pass its fill to the next path (#1390). An object whose art style is one fill and one stroke at most (solid colours, its own gradient, a variable-width profile) with an Outer Glow or Drop Shadow comes in as itself with them; one with more, other effects, a brush or dashes aligned to corners comes in as its drawn look (a group named after it). Type keeps its art style as a live appearance whatever its stack, so it can be retyped: each fill and stroke of the style's stack (solid colours, gradients and pattern fills, placed as the drawn look places them) with its own opacity, blend mode and effects, the effects on the whole object, and where the characters paint among them; the effects read are Warp, Offset Path, Transform (with copies), Drop Shadow, Outer Glow, Feather, Gaussian Blur and Bas Relief (its settings at their defaults), and a style with others keeps the type's drawn look. The page's drawing of such a style isn't held to look like VectorCraft's where its drawn look lay. Gradients take their matrix (`Xm`, radials and skewed ones too), focal point and the order of stops sharing a ramp point; gradient meshes, a clipping path's own fill and the artboards' names are read too. `editingData: "always"` (`convert --editing-data`) opens a `.ai` or an Illustrator EPS from its editing data even where it draws differently from its page, which can be older, with a note. Type is made from the file's text document, whole and editable, shown or not: point type (its frame's matrix, which newer files leave out when it is neither turned nor scaled, read as none), area type (a story in several frames as threaded type) and type on a path, with its characters, fonts, size, leading, tracking, scaling, baseline shift, fill and stroke (grey, RGB or CMYK), alignment, indents and paragraph spacing (a character attribute a run doesn't set comes from its character style, then the style that one is based on, then the document's defaults); the page's drawing of it (often in pieces) is left out. When it makes the type of every text object that shows, the page's type is only compared with it, each text object keeps its own group, frame and layer, and a line break inside a paragraph stays one. Where it can't make a text object's type (a frame of another kind), that text object takes the page's type where the text document puts its lines, or else what is left of the page's type in painting order (no group around it); the page's type where made type draws stays that type's, and hidden type is left out with a note. Text wrap is read too: an object whose dictionary has the wrap options (offset and Invert Wrap), or a graphic after the text object of a legacy wraparound group (`*w` … `*W`), is a wrap object, and area type below it in its layer flows around it when the file opens, threaded type included (#2763). Kerning, underline and the other character and paragraph options aren't read yet. A `.ai` saved without PDF compatibility (a placeholder page) opens from its editing data alone, its point type, area type and type on a path made from the text document. A `.ai` whose PDF part shows only text isn't taken for that placeholder when its page states an art, trim or bleed box: it opens from its editing data alone where that reads, else from its PDF part (#1387). A `.ai` whose PDF part draws nothing at all (an empty page, with or without those boxes) opens from its editing data alone where that reads too: there is no page art to check its layers against, and the empty page would lose all of it. Text objects with an appearance keep their own text and frame, type of hidden layers stays hidden, and type on later artboards lands on its text objects (#1391); area type whose frame is too short for a line of the fallback font shows its first line (the frame is made taller, with a warning in the open result) (#1392). Symbols, pattern fills whose pattern it can't read, placed files the data keeps no preview of and anything else it doesn't read make the file come in as its page (on a layer that doesn't show, they are left out of that layer), with a warning saying what. An unread object on a shown layer whose box can be found instead comes in as a group of the page's objects inside that box, named after it, with the rest of the layers and groups kept and a warning listing what came in as the page's art; the file still comes in as its page when live art or another unread object shares that page art, when the object spans two artboards, or when the page art doesn't carry its transparency (#4806). The layers' art is also compared with the page (by lightness, so colours written as their CMYK equivalents compare alike, and by whether a pixel is inked at all); the page is used when they differ by more than 5% (away from type, when all the type is made from the text document), where one draws an object the other doesn't (away from type, whose lines may be laid out afresh), and when an EPS whose page is its art's box has art printed outside it (#735). An EPS whose page is its art's box keeps that page when it comes in through its layers, not the editing data's artboard, and a text object counts as drawn by the page by its colours, not only its lightness, so a red stroke stacked over a dark red one stays (#1102). `textAs: "outlines"` opens a `.ai` whose type shows from its PDF part, which has the outlines; `editingData: false` opens any of them as its page or PDF part only, for print pipelines (#735). A file whose import left something out (hidden text, art or layers) is never written over by an export or Save As to its own path unless `acknowledgeLoss: true` (`convert --replace-lossy`), so the original keeps what the document lacks. Where a `.ai` can't be read that way (or its layers are turned off in the import options), we read its PDF-compatible part, so Illustrator-only live objects arrive as appearance, and plain groups arrive ungrouped: that part draws each object on its own and marks only layers, clipping groups and groups with opacity, blending or a mask (those come back). Art outside the artboards isn't in that part at all (Illustrator's PDF part leaves it out), so it doesn't open; the import says so in a note (#472). Its pages still go where the editing data puts the artboards (a grid stays a grid), with the art on each, when it has as many artboards as pages, of the same sizes (#1068). A `.ai` whose PDF part's pages are cropped to its art (each page the box of all the art, which is the editing data's bounding box) instead of its artboards opens from its layers, with its own artboards, where they draw as that page does. Its pages are laid out so that art one of them draws past its artboard (notes beside a design, which the part doesn't clip) doesn't lie over the page before it in the row, where it was taken for that page's art: the check against the editing data then found art its layers don't have there and opened the file as its PDF part, without the art outside the artboards. That part also has no paragraphs: area type is written line by line, and comes back as area type only where its font is installed and lays the lines out with the same breaks, else as a point type object per line (#508). Art off the page that a PDF does draw opens on the pasteboard.
the app's own editing copy of a file (an EPS after its `%%EOF`, a `.ai`'s `AIPrivateData` streams, a PDF's `AIPDFPrivateData` streams when it was saved with the editing data (#868), Zstandard or zlib, the EPS's in ASCII85) is not documented as a whole. VectorCraft reads its structure: layers and sublayers (names, order, visibility, lock, printing, preview, dimming, colour), groups as they were nested, compound paths (painted by their last path, or the last painted one, with the paths of groups inside them kept as their paths: #1410), clipping groups and layer clipping, object names, hidden and locked objects, fills and strokes (grey, CMYK, RGB, named and spot colours, spot colours defined in Lab with their Lab values (#1032), global process colours as global swatches at their tint), linear and radial gradients, pattern fills with their patterns as pattern swatches (#1025), opacity, blend modes, isolation and knockout, embedded images where their matrix puts them, rotated ones too (#2269), with their alpha channel (CMYK images keep their ink amounts, as they do when a `.ai` opens from its PDF part, and an alpha channel that hides part of a CMYK image becomes a grayscale opacity mask), placed (linked) files as linked images in their place, each showing the low-resolution preview the file keeps of it until its file is found or relinked in the Links panel (#1264), guides, and every artboard where it is. A gradient with stops in the middle runs its whole ramp across its shape, and a gradient object does not pass its fill to the next path (#1390). An object whose art style is one fill and one stroke at most (solid colours, its own gradient, a variable-width profile) with an Outer Glow or Drop Shadow comes in as itself with them; one with more, other effects, a brush or dashes aligned to corners comes in as its drawn look (a group named after it). Type keeps its art style as a live appearance whatever its stack, so it can be retyped: each fill and stroke of the style's stack (solid colours, gradients and pattern fills, placed as the drawn look places them) with its own opacity, blend mode and effects, the effects on the whole object, and where the characters paint among them; the effects read are Warp, Offset Path, Transform (with copies), Drop Shadow, Outer Glow, Feather, Gaussian Blur and Bas Relief (its settings at their defaults), and a style with others keeps the type's drawn look. The page's drawing of such a style isn't held to look like VectorCraft's where its drawn look lay. Gradients take their matrix (`Xm`, radials and skewed ones too), focal point and the order of stops sharing a ramp point; gradient meshes, a clipping path's own fill and the artboards' names are read too. `editingData: "always"` (`convert --editing-data`) opens a `.ai` or an Illustrator EPS from its editing data even where it draws differently from its page, which can be older, with a note. Type is made from the file's text document, whole and editable, shown or not: point type (its frame's matrix, which newer files leave out when it is neither turned nor scaled, read as none), area type (a story in several frames as threaded type) and type on a path, with its characters, fonts, size, leading, tracking, scaling, baseline shift, fill and stroke (grey, RGB or CMYK), alignment, indents and paragraph spacing (a character attribute a run doesn't set comes from its character style, then the style that one is based on, then the document's defaults); the page's drawing of it (often in pieces) is left out. When it makes the type of every text object that shows, the page's type is only compared with it, each text object keeps its own group, frame and layer, and a line break inside a paragraph stays one. Where it can't make a text object's type (a frame of another kind), that text object takes the page's type where the text document puts its lines, or else what is left of the page's type in painting order (no group around it); the page's type where made type draws stays that type's, and hidden type is left out with a note. Kerning, underline and the other character and paragraph options aren't read yet. A `.ai` saved without PDF compatibility (a placeholder page) opens from its editing data alone, its point type, area type and type on a path made from the text document. A `.ai` whose PDF part shows only text isn't taken for that placeholder when its page states an art, trim or bleed box: it opens from its editing data alone where that reads, else from its PDF part (#1387). A `.ai` whose PDF part draws nothing at all (an empty page, with or without those boxes) opens from its editing data alone where that reads too: there is no page art to check its layers against, and the empty page would lose all of it. Text objects with an appearance keep their own text and frame, type of hidden layers stays hidden, and type on later artboards lands on its text objects (#1391); area type whose frame is too short for a line of the fallback font shows its first line (the frame is made taller, with a warning in the open result) (#1392). Symbols, pattern fills whose pattern it can't read, placed files the data keeps no preview of and anything else it doesn't read make the file come in as its page (on a layer that doesn't show, they are left out of that layer), with a warning saying what. An unread object on a shown layer whose box can be found instead comes in as a group of the page's objects inside that box, named after it, with the rest of the layers and groups kept and a warning listing what came in as the page's art; the file still comes in as its page when live art or another unread object shares that page art, when the object spans two artboards or lies on an artboard that has no page, when no page art lies inside its box, when that page art is inside a page group with a clip, mask, transparency or appearance, when the object holds a frame of threaded type, when the page art uses a pattern, image or swatch that the page lacks or that differs from the editing data's, or when the page art doesn't carry its transparency (#4806). The layers' art is also compared with the page (by lightness, so colours written as their CMYK equivalents compare alike, and by whether a pixel is inked at all); the page is used when they differ by more than 5% (away from type, when all the type is made from the text document), where one draws an object the other doesn't (away from type, whose lines may be laid out afresh), and when an EPS whose page is its art's box has art printed outside it (#735). An EPS whose page is its art's box keeps that page when it comes in through its layers, not the editing data's artboard, and a text object counts as drawn by the page by its colours, not only its lightness, so a red stroke stacked over a dark red one stays (#1102). `textAs: "outlines"` opens a `.ai` whose type shows from its PDF part, which has the outlines; `editingData: false` opens any of them as its page or PDF part only, for print pipelines (#735). A file whose import left something out (hidden text, art or layers) is never written over by an export or Save As to its own path unless `acknowledgeLoss: true` (`convert --replace-lossy`), so the original keeps what the document lacks. Where a `.ai` can't be read that way (or its layers are turned off in the import options), we read its PDF-compatible part, so Illustrator-only live objects arrive as appearance, and plain groups arrive ungrouped: that part draws each object on its own and marks only layers, clipping groups and groups with opacity, blending or a mask (those come back). Art outside the artboards isn't in that part at all (Illustrator's PDF part leaves it out), so it doesn't open; the import says so in a note (#472). Its pages still go where the editing data puts the artboards (a grid stays a grid), with the art on each, when it has as many artboards as pages, of the same sizes (#1068). A `.ai` whose PDF part's pages are cropped to its art (each page the box of all the art, which is the editing data's bounding box) instead of its artboards opens from its layers, with its own artboards, where they draw as that page does. Its pages are laid out so that art one of them draws past its artboard (notes beside a design, which the part doesn't clip) doesn't lie over the page before it in the row, where it was taken for that page's art: the check against the editing data then found art its layers don't have there and opened the file as its PDF part, without the art outside the artboards. That part also has no paragraphs: area type is written line by line, and comes back as area type only where its font is installed and lays the lines out with the same breaks, else as a point type object per line (#508). Art off the page that a PDF does draw opens on the pasteboard.
the app's own editing copy of a file (an EPS after its `%%EOF`, a `.ai`'s `AIPrivateData` streams, a PDF's `AIPDFPrivateData` streams when it was saved with the editing data (#868), Zstandard or zlib, the EPS's in ASCII85) is not documented as a whole. VectorCraft reads its structure: layers and sublayers (names, order, visibility, lock, printing, preview, dimming, colour), groups as they were nested, compound paths (painted by their last path, or the last painted one, with the paths of groups inside them kept as their paths: #1410), clipping groups and layer clipping, object names, hidden and locked objects, fills and strokes (grey, CMYK, RGB, named and spot colours, spot colours defined in Lab with their Lab values (#1032), global process colours as global swatches at their tint), linear and radial gradients, pattern fills with their patterns as pattern swatches (#1025), opacity, blend modes, isolation and knockout, embedded images where their matrix puts them, rotated ones too (#2269), with their alpha channel (CMYK images keep their ink amounts, as they do when a `.ai` opens from its PDF part, and an alpha channel that hides part of a CMYK image becomes a grayscale opacity mask), placed (linked) files as linked images in their place, each showing the low-resolution preview the file keeps of it until its file is found or relinked in the Links panel (#1264), guides, and every artboard where it is. Objects on Path groups open live, with their path, their objects in order along it, Pivot and Rotate; one with a dragged spacing or other options opens as a plain group. A gradient with stops in the middle runs its whole ramp across its shape, and a gradient object does not pass its fill to the next path (#1390). An object whose art style is one fill and one stroke at most (solid colours, its own gradient, a variable-width profile) with an Outer Glow, Drop Shadow or Convert to Shape comes in as itself with them; one with more, other effects, a brush or dashes aligned to corners comes in as its drawn look (a group named after it). Type keeps its art style as a live appearance whatever its stack, so it can be retyped: each fill and stroke of the style's stack (solid colours, gradients and pattern fills, placed as the drawn look places them) with its own opacity, blend mode and effects, the effects on the whole object, and where the characters paint among them; the effects read are Warp, Offset Path, Transform (with copies), Drop Shadow, Outer Glow, Feather, Gaussian Blur, Bas Relief (its settings at their defaults) and Convert to Shape, and a style with others keeps the type's drawn look. Convert to Shape keeps its Rectangle, Rounded Rectangle or Ellipse, its Absolute or Relative size (a relative size in the file is added to each side) and its corner radius; a relative Ellipse, or a setting that isn't read, keeps the drawn look. The page's drawing of such a style isn't held to look like VectorCraft's where its drawn look lay. Gradients take their matrix (`Xm`, radials and skewed ones too), focal point and the order of stops sharing a ramp point; gradient meshes, a clipping path's own fill and the artboards' names are read too. `editingData: "always"` (`convert --editing-data`) opens a `.ai` or an Illustrator EPS from its editing data even where it draws differently from its page, which can be older, with a note. Type is made from the file's text document, whole and editable, shown or not: point type (its frame's matrix, which newer files leave out when it is neither turned nor scaled, read as none), area type (a story in several frames as threaded type) and type on a path, with its characters, fonts, size, leading, tracking, scaling, baseline shift, fill and stroke (grey, RGB or CMYK), alignment, indents and paragraph spacing (a character attribute a run doesn't set comes from its character style, then the style that one is based on, then the document's defaults); the page's drawing of it (often in pieces) is left out. When it makes the type of every text object that shows, the page's type is only compared with it, each text object keeps its own group, frame and layer, and a line break inside a paragraph stays one. Where it can't make a text object's type (a frame of another kind), that text object takes the page's type where the text document puts its lines, or else what is left of the page's type in painting order (no group around it); the page's type where made type draws stays that type's, and hidden type is left out with a note. Kerning, underline and the other character and paragraph options aren't read yet. A `.ai` saved without PDF compatibility (a placeholder page) opens from its editing data alone, its point type, area type and type on a path made from the text document. A `.ai` whose PDF part shows only text isn't taken for that placeholder when its page states an art, trim or bleed box: it opens from its editing data alone where that reads, else from its PDF part (#1387). A `.ai` whose PDF part draws nothing at all (an empty page, with or without those boxes) opens from its editing data alone where that reads too: there is no page art to check its layers against, and the empty page would lose all of it. Text objects with an appearance keep their own text and frame, type of hidden layers stays hidden, and type on later artboards lands on its text objects (#1391); area type whose frame is too short for a line of the fallback font shows its first line (the frame is made taller, with a warning in the open result) (#1392). Symbols, pattern fills whose pattern it can't read, placed files the data keeps no preview of and anything else it doesn't read make the file come in as its page (on a layer that doesn't show, they are left out of that layer), with a warning saying what. An unread object on a shown layer whose box can be found instead comes in as a group of the page's objects inside that box, named after it, with the rest of the layers and groups kept and a warning listing what came in as the page's art; the file still comes in as its page when live art or another unread object shares that page art, when the object spans two artboards, or when the page art doesn't carry its transparency (#4806). The layers' art is also compared with the page (by lightness, so colours written as their CMYK equivalents compare alike, and by whether a pixel is inked at all); the page is used when they differ by more than 5% (away from type, when all the type is made from the text document), where one draws an object the other doesn't (away from type, whose lines may be laid out afresh), and when an EPS whose page is its art's box has art printed outside it (#735). An EPS whose page is its art's box keeps that page when it comes in through its layers, not the editing data's artboard, and a text object counts as drawn by the page by its colours, not only its lightness, so a red stroke stacked over a dark red one stays (#1102). `textAs: "outlines"` opens a `.ai` whose type shows from its PDF part, which has the outlines; `editingData: false` opens any of them as its page or PDF part only, for print pipelines (#735). A file whose import left something out (hidden text, art or layers) is never written over by an export or Save As to its own path unless `acknowledgeLoss: true` (`convert --replace-lossy`), so the original keeps what the document lacks. Where a `.ai` can't be read that way (or its layers are turned off in the import options), we read its PDF-compatible part, so Illustrator-only live objects arrive as appearance, and plain groups arrive ungrouped: that part draws each object on its own and marks only layers, clipping groups and groups with opacity, blending or a mask (those come back). Art outside the artboards isn't in that part at all (Illustrator's PDF part leaves it out), so it doesn't open; the import says so in a note (#472). Its pages still go where the editing data puts the artboards (a grid stays a grid), with the art on each, when it has as many artboards as pages, of the same sizes (#1068). A `.ai` whose PDF part's pages are cropped to its art (each page the box of all the art, which is the editing data's bounding box) instead of its artboards opens from its layers, with its own artboards, where they draw as that page does. Its pages are laid out so that art one of them draws past its artboard (notes beside a design, which the part doesn't clip) doesn't lie over the page before it in the row, where it was taken for that page's art: the check against the editing data then found art its layers don't have there and opened the file as its PDF part, without the art outside the artboards. That part also has no paragraphs: area type is written line by line, and comes back as area type only where its font is installed and lays the lines out with the same breaks, else as a point type object per line (#508). Art off the page that a PDF does draw opens on the pasteboard.
the app's own editing copy of a file (an EPS after its `%%EOF`, a `.ai`'s `AIPrivateData` streams, a PDF's `AIPDFPrivateData` streams when it was saved with the editing data (#868), Zstandard or zlib, the EPS's in ASCII85) is not documented as a whole. VectorCraft reads its structure: layers and sublayers (names, order, visibility, lock, printing, preview, dimming, colour), groups as they were nested, compound paths (painted by their last path, or the last painted one, with the paths of groups inside them kept as their paths: #1410), clipping groups and layer clipping, object names, hidden and locked objects, fills and strokes (grey, CMYK, RGB, named and spot colours, spot colours defined in Lab with their Lab values (#1032), global process colours as global swatches at their tint), linear and radial gradients, pattern fills with their patterns as pattern swatches (#1025), opacity, blend modes, isolation and knockout, embedded images where their matrix puts them, rotated ones too (#2269), with their alpha channel (CMYK images keep their ink amounts, as they do when a `.ai` opens from its PDF part, and an alpha channel that hides part of a CMYK image becomes a grayscale opacity mask), placed (linked) files as linked images in their place, each showing the low-resolution preview the file keeps of it until its file is found or relinked in the Links panel (#1264), guides, and every artboard where it is. Objects on Path groups open live, with their path, their objects in order along it, Pivot and Rotate; one with a dragged spacing or other options opens as a plain group. A gradient with stops in the middle runs its whole ramp across its shape, and a gradient object does not pass its fill to the next path (#1390). An object whose art style is one fill and one stroke at most (solid colours, its own gradient, a variable-width profile) with Drop Shadow, Inner Glow, Outer Glow, Feather, Round Corners or Scribble comes in as itself with them and their saved settings; one with more, other effects, an effect setting that is not read (an unknown key, a missing or out-of-range value, a Scribble with a color of its own), a brush or dashes aligned to corners comes in as its drawn look (a group named after it). Type keeps its art style as a live appearance whatever its stack, so it can be retyped: each fill and stroke of the style's stack (solid colours, gradients and pattern fills, placed as the drawn look places them) with its own opacity, blend mode and effects, the effects on the whole object, and where the characters paint among them; the effects read are Warp, Offset Path, Transform (with copies), Drop Shadow, Inner Glow, Outer Glow, Feather, Round Corners, Scribble, Gaussian Blur and Bas Relief (its settings at their defaults), and a style with others keeps the type's drawn look. The page's drawing of such a style isn't held to look like VectorCraft's where its drawn look lay. Gradients take their matrix (`Xm`, radials and skewed ones too), focal point and the order of stops sharing a ramp point; gradient meshes, a clipping path's own fill and the artboards' names are read too. `editingData: "always"` (`convert --editing-data`) opens a `.ai` or an Illustrator EPS from its editing data even where it draws differently from its page, which can be older, with a note. Type is made from the file's text document, whole and editable, shown or not: point type (its frame's matrix, which newer files leave out when it is neither turned nor scaled, read as none), area type (a story in several frames as threaded type) and type on a path, with its characters, fonts, size, leading, tracking, scaling, baseline shift, fill and stroke (grey, RGB or CMYK), alignment, indents and paragraph spacing (a character attribute a run doesn't set comes from its character style, then the style that one is based on, then the document's defaults); the page's drawing of it (often in pieces) is left out. When it makes the type of every text object that shows, the page's type is only compared with it, each text object keeps its own group, frame and layer, and a line break inside a paragraph stays one. Where it can't make a text object's type (a frame of another kind), that text object takes the page's type where the text document puts its lines, or else what is left of the page's type in painting order (no group around it); the page's type where made type draws stays that type's, and hidden type is left out with a note. Kerning, underline and the other character and paragraph options aren't read yet. A `.ai` saved without PDF compatibility (a placeholder page) opens from its editing data alone, its point type, area type and type on a path made from the text document. A `.ai` whose PDF part shows only text isn't taken for that placeholder when its page states an art, trim or bleed box: it opens from its editing data alone where that reads, else from its PDF part (#1387). A `.ai` whose PDF part draws nothing at all (an empty page, with or without those boxes) opens from its editing data alone where that reads too: there is no page art to check its layers against, and the empty page would lose all of it. Text objects with an appearance keep their own text and frame, type of hidden layers stays hidden, and type on later artboards lands on its text objects (#1391); area type whose frame is too short for a line of the fallback font shows its first line (the frame is made taller, with a warning in the open result) (#1392). Symbols, pattern fills whose pattern it can't read, placed files the data keeps no preview of and anything else it doesn't read make the file come in as its page (on a layer that doesn't show, they are left out of that layer), with a warning saying what. An unread object on a shown layer whose box can be found instead comes in as a group of the page's objects inside that box, named after it, with the rest of the layers and groups kept and a warning listing what came in as the page's art; the file still comes in as its page when live art or another unread object shares that page art, when the object spans two artboards, or when the page art doesn't carry its transparency (#4806). The layers' art is also compared with the page (by lightness, so colours written as their CMYK equivalents compare alike, and by whether a pixel is inked at all); the page is used when they differ by more than 5% (away from type, when all the type is made from the text document), where one draws an object the other doesn't (away from type, whose lines may be laid out afresh), and when an EPS whose page is its art's box has art printed outside it (#735). An EPS whose page is its art's box keeps that page when it comes in through its layers, not the editing data's artboard, and a text object counts as drawn by the page by its colours, not only its lightness, so a red stroke stacked over a dark red one stays (#1102). `textAs: "outlines"` opens a `.ai` whose type shows from its PDF part, which has the outlines; `editingData: false` opens any of them as its page or PDF part only, for print pipelines (#735). A file whose import left something out (hidden text, art or layers) is never written over by an export or Save As to its own path unless `acknowledgeLoss: true` (`convert --replace-lossy`), so the original keeps what the document lacks. Where a `.ai` can't be read that way (or its layers are turned off in the import options), we read its PDF-compatible part, so Illustrator-only live objects arrive as appearance, and plain groups arrive ungrouped: that part draws each object on its own and marks only layers, clipping groups and groups with opacity, blending or a mask (those come back). Art outside the artboards isn't in that part at all (Illustrator's PDF part leaves it out), so it doesn't open; the import says so in a note (#472). Its pages still go where the editing data puts the artboards (a grid stays a grid), with the art on each, when it has as many artboards as pages, of the same sizes (#1068). A `.ai` whose PDF part's pages are cropped to its art (each page the box of all the art, which is the editing data's bounding box) instead of its artboards opens from its layers, with its own artboards, where they draw as that page does. Its pages are laid out so that art one of them draws past its artboard (notes beside a design, which the part doesn't clip) doesn't lie over the page before it in the row, where it was taken for that page's art: the check against the editing data then found art its layers don't have there and opened the file as its PDF part, without the art outside the artboards. That part also has no paragraphs: area type is written line by line, and comes back as area type only where its font is installed and lays the lines out with the same breaks, else as a point type object per line (#508). Art off the page that a PDF does draw opens on the pasteboard.
the app's own editing copy of a file (an EPS after its `%%EOF`, a `.ai`'s `AIPrivateData` streams, a PDF's `AIPDFPrivateData` streams when it was saved with the editing data (#868), Zstandard or zlib, the EPS's in ASCII85) is not documented as a whole. VectorCraft reads its structure: layers and sublayers (names, order, visibility, lock, printing, preview, dimming, colour), groups as they were nested, compound paths (painted by their last path, or the last painted one, with the paths of groups inside them kept as their paths: #1410), clipping groups and layer clipping, object names, hidden and locked objects, fills and strokes (grey, CMYK, RGB, named and spot colours, spot colours defined in Lab with their Lab values (#1032), global process colours as global swatches at their tint), linear and radial gradients, pattern fills with their patterns as pattern swatches (#1025), opacity, blend modes, isolation and knockout, embedded images where their matrix puts them, rotated ones too (#2269), with their alpha channel (CMYK images keep their ink amounts, as they do when a `.ai` opens from its PDF part, and an alpha channel that hides part of a CMYK image becomes a grayscale opacity mask), placed (linked) files as linked images in their place, each showing the low-resolution preview the file keeps of it until its file is found or relinked in the Links panel (#1264), guides, and every artboard where it is. Objects on Path groups open live, with their path, their objects in order along it, Pivot and Rotate; one with a dragged spacing or other options opens as a plain group. A gradient with stops in the middle runs its whole ramp across its shape, and a gradient object does not pass its fill to the next path (#1390). An object whose art style is one fill and one stroke at most (solid colours, its own gradient, a variable-width profile) with an Outer Glow or Drop Shadow comes in as itself with them; one with more, other effects, a brush or dashes aligned to corners comes in as its drawn look (a group named after it). Type keeps its art style as a live appearance whatever its stack, so it can be retyped: each fill and stroke of the style's stack (solid colours, gradients and pattern fills, placed as the drawn look places them) with its own opacity, blend mode and effects, the effects on the whole object, and where the characters paint among them; the effects read are Warp, Offset Path, Transform (with copies), Drop Shadow, Outer Glow, Feather, Gaussian Blur and Bas Relief (its settings at their defaults), and a style with others keeps the type's drawn look. The page's drawing of such a style isn't held to look like VectorCraft's where its drawn look lay. Gradients take their matrix (`Xm`, radials and skewed ones too), focal point and the order of stops sharing a ramp point; gradient meshes, a clipping path's own fill and its stroke, and the artboards' names are read too. `editingData: "always"` (`convert --editing-data`) opens a `.ai` or an Illustrator EPS from its editing data even where it draws differently from its page, which can be older, with a note. Type is made from the file's text document, whole and editable, shown or not: point type (its frame's matrix, which newer files leave out when it is neither turned nor scaled, read as none), area type (a story in several frames as threaded type) and type on a path, with its characters, fonts, size, leading, tracking, scaling, baseline shift, fill and stroke (grey, RGB or CMYK), alignment, indents and paragraph spacing (a character attribute a run doesn't set comes from its character style, then the style that one is based on, then the document's defaults); the page's drawing of it (often in pieces) is left out. When it makes the type of every text object that shows, the page's type is only compared with it, each text object keeps its own group, frame and layer, and a line break inside a paragraph stays one. Where it can't make a text object's type (a frame of another kind), that text object takes the page's type where the text document puts its lines, or else what is left of the page's type in painting order (no group around it); the page's type where made type draws stays that type's, and hidden type is left out with a note. Kerning, underline and the other character and paragraph options aren't read yet. A `.ai` saved without PDF compatibility (a placeholder page) opens from its editing data alone, its point type, area type and type on a path made from the text document. A `.ai` whose PDF part shows only text isn't taken for that placeholder when its page states an art, trim or bleed box: it opens from its editing data alone where that reads, else from its PDF part (#1387). A `.ai` whose PDF part draws nothing at all (an empty page, with or without those boxes) opens from its editing data alone where that reads too: there is no page art to check its layers against, and the empty page would lose all of it. Text objects with an appearance keep their own text and frame, type of hidden layers stays hidden, and type on later artboards lands on its text objects (#1391); area type whose frame is too short for a line of the fallback font shows its first line (the frame is made taller, with a warning in the open result) (#1392). Symbols, pattern fills whose pattern it can't read, placed files the data keeps no preview of and anything else it doesn't read make the file come in as its page (on a layer that doesn't show, they are left out of that layer), with a warning saying what. An unread object on a shown layer whose box can be found instead comes in as a group of the page's objects inside that box, named after it, with the rest of the layers and groups kept and a warning listing what came in as the page's art; the file still comes in as its page when live art or another unread object shares that page art, when the object spans two artboards, or when the page art doesn't carry its transparency (#4806). The layers' art is also compared with the page (by lightness, so colours written as their CMYK equivalents compare alike, and by whether a pixel is inked at all); the page is used when they differ by more than 5% (away from type, when all the type is made from the text document), where one draws an object the other doesn't (away from type, whose lines may be laid out afresh), and when an EPS whose page is its art's box has art printed outside it (#735). An EPS whose page is its art's box keeps that page when it comes in through its layers, not the editing data's artboard, and a text object counts as drawn by the page by its colours, not only its lightness, so a red stroke stacked over a dark red one stays (#1102). `textAs: "outlines"` opens a `.ai` whose type shows from its PDF part, which has the outlines; `editingData: false` opens any of them as its page or PDF part only, for print pipelines (#735). A file whose import left something out (hidden text, art or layers) is never written over by an export or Save As to its own path unless `acknowledgeLoss: true` (`convert --replace-lossy`), so the original keeps what the document lacks. Where a `.ai` can't be read that way (or its layers are turned off in the import options), we read its PDF-compatible part, so Illustrator-only live objects arrive as appearance, and plain groups arrive ungrouped: that part draws each object on its own and marks only layers, clipping groups and groups with opacity, blending or a mask (those come back). Art outside the artboards isn't in that part at all (Illustrator's PDF part leaves it out), so it doesn't open; the import says so in a note (#472). Its pages still go where the editing data puts the artboards (a grid stays a grid), with the art on each, when it has as many artboards as pages, of the same sizes (#1068). A `.ai` whose PDF part's pages are cropped to its art (each page the box of all the art, which is the editing data's bounding box) instead of its artboards opens from its layers, with its own artboards, where they draw as that page does. Its pages are laid out so that art one of them draws past its artboard (notes beside a design, which the part doesn't clip) doesn't lie over the page before it in the row, where it was taken for that page's art: the check against the editing data then found art its layers don't have there and opened the file as its PDF part, without the art outside the artboards. That part also has no paragraphs: area type is written line by line, and comes back as area type only where its font is installed and lays the lines out with the same breaks, else as a point type object per line (#508). Art off the page that a PDF does draw opens on the pasteboard.

## Format by format

| Format | Illustrator | Ours: open/place | Ours: save/export | Fidelity and tests |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| VectorCraft `.vectorcraft` / `.vctemplate` | — | yes | yes | lossless JSON, versioned, save down to v1; property-tested round trips (`format/tests/prop_format.rs`); documents with a lot of path data are written as compact JSON, about a fifth of the size (#1492); a save falls back to a plain fsync and to writing elsewhere and copying in when the folder refuses the usual steps (#1625, #1649, part of #1620; not confirmed on a real network share); the size limits on embedded data also apply to files read from memory (#1783), and saving over a private file on Unix leaves no readable temporary copy beside it (#1778); a dynamic symbol's type (`dynamic` on the symbol) and an instance's appearance changes to its art (`symbol_overrides`, each path at most 64 deep, counted against the object budget) are written only when set, so documents without them save as before (#4938) |
| Illustrator template `.ait` | open, save | yes | PDF-compatible only, from Save as Template (`.vctemplate` stays its default) | New from Template opens a saved `.ait` untitled with its layers and art (`tests_pdfedit.rs`) |
| Illustrator `.ai` | open, save | yes (PDF-compatible + editing-data structure with template layers and ruler guides, File Info) | PDF-compatible, or legacy version 7 (layers and groups) | see above; no real-file corpus |
| PDF | open, place, save | yes (layers, masks, editable text, security, overprint, File Info from the XMP packet and the document information dictionary; Crop To › Trim takes the bleed box as the document's bleed) | yes (presets, PDF/X-1a/3/4, layers, marks and bleed, ICC, fast web view, 1.3+) | fuzzed import; shared guarded writer and windowed reader ([pdf-backend.md](pdf-backend.md)), metadata, incomplete-content and dependency-source regressions; PDF text opens where the file draws it, glyph by glyph (#722: kerning or none, spacing per character, text rise as baseline shift, vertical writing, justified text boxes); alpha soft masks drawn as images import with the mask (#1551); a clip only counts as covering the page when its shape does (#1542); a PDF another app copied pastes as editable vector art (#1499); letter-spaced type on a path keeps its length and its glyph-by-glyph stroke comes in as one text object (#1586, #1585); a crafted name tree with shared nodes no longer takes exponential time on open (#1781); fonts named with hyphens (`Noto-Sans-Bold`) or with a composite font's CMap (`Name-Identity-H`) find the installed family; invisible text (rendering mode 3: a scanned page's recognized text) opens as type with no fill or stroke and saves back as invisible, searchable text (#2675); PDF/X-1a and X-3 flattening in a CMYK document keeps CMYK inks where it rasterizes (#2160) |
| EPS | open, place, save | yes (own PostScript L3 interpreter, Illustrator EPS editing data structure) | yes (L2/L3, TIFF previews) | CID-keyed CJK type not read; #505; images encoded with `CCITTFaxDecode` (ITU-T T.4 Group 3 and T.6 Group 4, with `K`, `Columns`, `Rows`, `EndOfBlock`, `EndOfLine`, `EncodedByteAlign` and `BlackIs1`) draw, and damaged data keeps the rows decoded before its first damaged row; Type 42 (TrueType) fonts set type at its size (#1553); a clip only counts as covering the page when its shape does (#1542); an EPS another app copied pastes as editable vector art (`clipboard.importEps`, #1499); a stitched shading keeps its hard colour changes on import (#1654); CMYK images, CMYK JPEGs included, keep their ink amounts on import, as from PDF, and the pixels a `MaskColor` or `ImageType 3` mask hides become a grayscale opacity mask; ruzstd 0.9.1 for compressed editing data (#1807, RUSTSEC-2026-0344) |
| PostScript `.ps` | open, place | yes (the EPS reader reads its first page; `.epsf` files open and place as EPS) | via Print to PostScript | `tests_epsimport.rs` |
| SVG / SVGZ | open, place, save | yes | yes (SVG Options, Preserve Editing, symbols, filters, rich text) | strongest format; tests in `crates/svg/tests`; text on a path follows basic shapes as their SVG 2 equivalent paths (#1527); CSS transforms and the `font` shorthand (#1565), percentage lengths in symbols (#1596), Inkscape flowed text as area type (#1568) and Inkscape pages as artboards (#1601) import; an unsupported filter is named in its warning (#1598); an artboard exported on its own (Export As with Use Artboards, Export for Screens, Asset Export) has the artboard's name as `<title>`, Save the document's (#3544); attributes in other applications' XML namespaces (`plotter:pen="2"`) kept on their objects from import to export, as `data-*` attributes are (`crates/svg/tests/it/foreign_attributes.rs`); simple shapes export as `<rect>`, `<circle>`, `<ellipse>`, `<line>`, `<polygon>` and `<polyline>` where they draw the same as the path (#4652, `crates/svg/tests/it/basic_shapes.rs`) |
| DXF | open, export | yes | yes (R12–2018) | R13–2018 closed SPLINE flags and control-point closure on import verified (#1299); circular cubic paths export as native CIRCLE/ARC where stroke semantics permit; R12 weighted strokes remain POLYLINE while non-circular curves keep the existing fallback (`crates/cad/src/tests.rs`); [Autodesk group 70](https://help.autodesk.com/cloudhelp/2024/ENU/AutoCAD-DXF/files/GUID-E1F884F8-AA90-4864-A215-3182D47A9C74.htm). DXF 2000–2018 LAYOUT objects write the paper image origin as 148/149 (was a stray 158), the shade plot codes (2004+) and the model type flag, and the plot style placeholder carries no subclass marker (#3085; structure test `r2000_and_later_files_have_the_structure_cad_apps_require`, checked with ezdxf's audit; not yet confirmed in Autodesk Fusion). CNC preset and VCarve QA remain open |
| DWG | open, export | no | no | no open spec; DXF instead |
| EMF / WMF | open, export | yes | yes | an oversized embedded PNG or JPEG is refused from its header, before any pixels are decoded (#1776) |
| PSD | open, place, export | yes (merged image, every mode and depth) | yes (layered, max editability) | placing as layers (Photoshop Import Options) missing; the embedded ICC profile's tags are 4-byte aligned (#1584) |
| PSB | open | yes (merged image) | no | |
| PNG / JPEG / GIF / BMP / TIFF / Targa | open, place, export | yes (Targa: `.tga`, `.vda`, `.icb` and `.vst`, raw or run-length encoded, with a 16-bit file's one-bit alpha) | yes; TIFF is also selectable in Export for Screens and Asset Export with its existing options | Targa: `tests_tiffbmp.rs`, `tests/links.rs`; TIFF: grayscale with an alpha channel or other extra channels reads (#1466 in part), and so do files that store each channel as its own plane (PlanarConfiguration 2), CMYK ones with their ink amounts, and 1-bit files compressed with CCITT Group 3 (Compression 2 and 3, one- and two-dimensional rows); the ICC profiles embedded in JPEG and TIFF have 4-byte aligned tags (#1584); PNG export marks its colours as sRGB (`embedIcc`, an `sRGB` chunk; no ICC profile is embedded, #2221) |
| WebP | export (Export for Screens) | yes | yes (lossless only; lossy written lossless with a warning) | |
| HEIC / HEIF | open, place | no | no | |
| PCX | open, place | yes (1 bit in the header palette's first two colors, black and white without them; 1 bit in two to four planes and 4 bits with up to 16 colors; 2 bits in the CGA colors the header's CGA palette settings pick; 8 bits with the 256-color palette, gray without one; 24-bit color in three planes) | no | the header's HDpi and VDpi size the image; a file of another depth or plane count, cut short or past the pixel allowance is refused with a message; tests in `crates/engine/src/cmd/fileio/tests_pcxread.rs` and `crates/engine/tests/import_fuzz.rs` |
| JPEG 2000 | open, place | yes (JP2 and raw codestream images; multiple codestreams and JPX composition or layers are refused) | no | `.jpf`, `.jpx`, `.jp2`, `.j2k`, `.j2c`, `.jpc`; resolution uses the last valid `resc` or `resd` value on each axis, or 72 ppi; bounded decoding; `tests_jp2read.rs` |
| PICT, Pixar PXR | open, place (legacy) | no | no | rarely used |
| FreeHand `.fh*` | open (legacy) | no | no | |
| CorelDRAW `.cdr` | open | no | no | |
| Text `.txt` | place, export | place (Text Import Options) | yes | |
| RTF `.rtf` | place | place (area type with fonts, size, bold, italic, underline, strikethrough, caps, superscript and subscript, color, alignment, indents and paragraph spacing) | no | `tests/textimport.rs`, `place/rtf.rs`; fuzzed (`text_import_fuzz.rs`); `\'hh` bytes read as Windows-1252 or Mac Roman only |
| Word `.docx` | place | place (area type with the document's styles and its fonts, size, bold, italic, underline, strikethrough, caps, superscript and subscript, color, alignment, indents and paragraph spacing) | no | `tests/textimport.rs`, `place/docx.rs`; fuzzed (`text_import_fuzz.rs`); list numbers, pictures and text boxes are left out |
| Word `.doc` | place | place (area type with the same formatting as `.docx`, from the style sheet's styles and direct formatting; Word 97 and later) | no | `tests/textimport.rs`, `place/doc.rs`; fuzzed (`text_import_fuzz.rs`); pictures, headers, footers, notes, comments and text boxes are left out with a warning; encrypted and fast-saved documents are refused |
| CSS | export (CSS Properties) | — | yes | |
| OBJ / USDA / glTF | 3D export | — | no | needs 3D (gap G3) |
| Affinity `.af`, `.afdesign`, `.afpub` | no | yes (beyond Illustrator) | no (#665) | 51 pinned files, [affinity-validation.md](affinity-validation.md) |
| Clipboard: PDF, SVG, PNG, EMF, text | yes | yes | yes | copied files paste as art |

## PDF editable imports

- [x] Place from bytes or unlinked paths, and PDF clipboard paste, keep the selected page's live text. Synthetic two-page regressions in `crates/engine/src/cmd/fileio/tests_pdffidelity.rs` cover both sources, page selection and explicit outlines. The single-page importer honors the same text choice as Open; existing PDF fallback rules are unchanged.

## Corpus download integrity

- [x] PngSuite opt-in downloads are pinned, SHA-256 verified and bounded before publication (#1729); no archive extraction. This secures fixture acquisition and does not raise format-fidelity scores.

## Revision history

| Date | Change | Summary |
|---|---|---|
| 2026-11-01 | minor | Native format: a symbol's Symbol Type (`dynamic`) and a dynamic symbol instance's appearance changes to objects of its art (`symbol_overrides`) round-trip; both are left out when unset, so other documents save unchanged (#4938). `.ai` reading and writing of dynamic symbols remains. |
| 2026-11-01 | minor | Exports draw each artboard's background color behind its art (#4937): PNG, JPEG, GIF, TIFF, WebP, BMP, Targa and PSD (a layer of its own; on a transparent background too), PDF, SVG and EPS pages, a `.ai` file's PDF pages and PostScript and PDF print; `includeArtboardFill: false` leaves it out. Files with editing data (Preserve Editing, `.ai`, EPS, native) keep it as the artboard's color and reopen without extra art. Not read from the reference app's own `.ai` data, nor written to it. DXF, EMF and WMF leave it out |
| 2026-10-31 | minor | PDF import finds an installed font whose PDF name holds hyphens (`Noto-Sans-Bold` is Noto Sans, Bold: the longest part before a hyphen that names an installed family) and a composite font by its CIDFont's name rather than its base name, which ends in the CMap's (`Name-Identity-H`, [ISO 32000-1 §9.7.6.1](https://opensource.adobe.com/dc-acrobat-sdk-docs/pdfstandards/PDF32000_2008.pdf)); a missing font is split only before a style part (`Helvetica-BoldOblique`), so it is reported as `MS PGothic`, not `MS`; scores unchanged (estimated) |
| 2026-10-31 | minor | DXF export (2000–2018): the LAYOUT objects wrote the paper image origin as a point at group codes 148 and 158, but PLOTSETTINGS defines 148 and 149 and no 158, so strict readers could reject the file (Autodesk Fusion reported "DXF File failed to insert", #3085). They now write 148/149, the shade plot mode, resolution and DPI (76–78, 2004 and later) and flag 1024 on the Model layout; the plot style ACDBPLACEHOLDER no longer carries a subclass marker. Test `r2000_and_later_files_have_the_structure_cad_apps_require` (required sections and table entries, handles and references, LAYOUT group codes); exports pass ezdxf's recover and audit; not tested in Fusion itself; scores unchanged |
| 2026-10-31 | minor | `.ai`/EPS editing data: an envelope whose contents are being edited is written the other way round from one that isn't: its contents, a group on `%_` lines, then its dictionary, which holds the mesh that shapes them. Those contents were read as art, so the undistorted art drew over the distorted art the page draws. The group on `%_` lines before an envelope's dictionary is now left out whatever it holds (text in it stays as hidden text, as the dictionary's own does), as the envelope's mesh already was (#2405). Test `import::ai::tests::an_envelope_s_contents_being_edited_are_not_read_as_art`; checked locally against a user's file: it opens from its layers, 0.0% from its page (it was 9.7%, over the 5% limit); scores unchanged |
| 2026-10-31 | minor | `.ai`/EPS editing data: a transparency (`Xy`) set by art inside a dictionary, as an area text's frame (its `/ConfiningPath`) or a mask's art sets one, stays the current one after the dictionary: the writer goes on from it, so the objects after such a text have no `Xy` of their own. It was dropped when the dictionary closed, and a user's file drew its logo, calligraphy, footer and type after an area text with the Lighten of the glow before it, so they faded into the light background. Test `import::ai::tests::a_transparency_set_in_a_dictionary_s_art_stays_after_it`; checked locally against that file: 8.1% → 1.7% from its page, so it opens from its layers (5% is the limit); scores unchanged |
| 2026-10-31 | minor | `.ai`/EPS editing data: area type made from the file's text document put its first baseline the font's ascent below the frame's top, where the file's own layout (and its page) can have it higher: Oswald's and Urbanist's headings came in a third and an eighth of their size lower than on the page, and each text over them was taken to differ. When the text document's first line is more than half a point from where it is laid out here, the first baseline is fixed (Area Type Options › First Baseline › Fixed) where the file has it; the type's own font metrics aren't changed. Test `import::ate::tests::area_type_s_first_line_goes_where_the_file_lays_it_out`; checked locally against users' files: two election posters come 5.4% → 1.1% and 8.6% → 4.3% from their pages, so they open from their layers, and another 1.7% → 0.3%; scores unchanged |
| 2026-10-31 | minor | `.ai`/EPS editing data: type made from the file's text document took each character attribute its run doesn't set from the document's base attributes, not from the character style the run names (`[Normal Character Style]` or another of the file's, and the styles each is based on). Where they differ the type came in wrong: a user's file whose base fill is white and whose Normal Character Style is black came in with its text white, so most of its type was missing wherever the page's own type didn't stand in for it. A run now takes its own attributes, then its character style's, then the document's ([Character and paragraph styles](https://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/using/character-paragraph-styles.html)). Test `import::tests_native::type_from_the_text_document_takes_its_character_styles_attributes`; checked locally against 377 users' files: none newly opens from its PDF part, and with #4791 that file opens from its layers (6.3% → 1.1% from its page); scores unchanged |
| 2026-10-31 | minor | SVG export (and Object › Expand, EPS, DXF, EMF and the other outputs that cut a gradient mesh into flat pieces): each patch was cut into 8 × 8 quads whatever its colours, so a patch of one colour became 64 identical pieces. Neighbouring quads are now joined into square blocks wherever the colour changes by no more than about one 8-bit step across the block, so a flat patch is one piece and a patch that shades strongly keeps all 64; a block's outline runs through its quads' corners, and a patch that folds over itself is not joined. A synthetic page of 400 meshes (6 × 6 patches, half flat) exports 468,000 pieces instead of 921,600 (35 MB instead of 66 MB), and resvg draws the two files identically. Tests `mesh_export` (crate `vectorcraft-svg`), `tests::live::mesh_expand_to_flat_pieces`; scores unchanged |
| 2026-10-31 | minor | PDF import (and a `.ai`'s PDF part): a transparency group's knockout and isolate flags (`/K`, `/I`; ISO 32000-1, 11.4.6.3) come from the interpreter as it pushes the group. They were read from the file in order and matched to the groups pushed, but a group that adds nothing (full opacity, Normal, no mask, neither flag) is drawn straight onto its parent without being pushed, so every group after one lost its own flags and took another's; and a page drawing form groups more than 10,000 times failed to import (the list of their flags was capped), which it no longer does. A blend's steps written as a knockout group of falling opacity drew as solid dark shapes: a user's `.ai` with 143 such bubbles now draws them as light rings, as poppler does (its bubble area 4.9% → 1.2% of pixels off from poppler's render); 16 other users' PDFs with transparency groups (44 pages) draw the same. Test `tests::import_fidelity::knockout_groups_after_a_group_drawn_straight_keep_their_flag`; scores unchanged |
| 2026-10-30 | minor | `.ai`/EPS editing data: a blend takes the transparency (opacity, blend mode, knockout; blends are written with knockout on) in the state block after its record, as a group takes the one after its end; it was left for the next object, so a blend's steps of falling opacity drew over each other instead of knocking each other out, and every such blend came in too dark (a user's file has 143, its bubbles came in as dark rings). Both a live blend and drawn steps kept as a group take it. Test `import::ai::tests::a_blends_transparency_follows_its_record`; checked locally against that file: it comes 1.3% → 0.6% nearer its page, though a mesh seen through a mesh-shaped opacity mask still keeps it just over the limit. When a blend is the layer's last object and the layer's own state block (`7 () XW`, then `LB`) follows, the state is the layer's and the blend keeps its own, as for meshes (#4748); scores unchanged |
| 2026-10-31 | minor | PDF (and `.ai`) with Illustrator editing data saved with only some of its artboards: its pages are those artboards, while the editing data keeps them all, and the layers were compared with the first page on the first artboard, so a page of the second artboard came in as the PDF part, without its layers. With fewer pages than artboards, the first page is now taken to be the artboard of its size whose art draws most like it (up to 16 weighed), and the pages' type goes to that artboard and the ones after it. All artboards come in, as before. Test `import::tests_native::a_pdf_of_its_second_artboard_is_compared_on_that_artboard`; scores unchanged |
| 2026-10-30 | minor | `.ai`/EPS editing data: a blend takes the transparency (opacity, blend mode, knockout; blends are written with knockout on) in the state block after its record, as a group takes the one after its end; it was left for the next object, so a blend's steps of falling opacity drew over each other instead of knocking each other out, and every such blend came in too dark (a user's file has 143, its bubbles came in as dark rings). Both a live blend and drawn steps kept as a group take it. Test `import::ai::tests::a_blends_transparency_follows_its_record`; checked locally against that file: it comes 1.3% → 0.6% nearer its page, though a mesh seen through a mesh-shaped opacity mask still keeps it just over the limit; scores unchanged |
| 2026-10-30 | minor | `.ai`/EPS editing data: a gradient mesh with an opacity mask takes the transparency (`Xy`) written after the mask's dictionary, as one without a mask takes the one right after its `/End X!`; the operators of the mask's art (on `%_` lines) hid it, so the state was read as the next object's and each masked mesh in a run drew with the blend mode of the one before it (a Multiply shading drawn Normal, an Overlay tint drawn Multiply over the art below). Test `import::ai::tests::a_masked_gradient_mesh_takes_the_transparency_written_after_its_mask`; checked locally against a user's files: one opens from its layers 0.1% from its page (it was 0.6%, just inside the limit), another comes 1.6% → 1.3% nearer; scores unchanged |
| 2026-10-30 | minor | `.ai`/EPS editing data: a layer's own state block (`Xy`, `Xd`, `7 () XW` before `LB`) can have the stroke style (`J`, `j`, `w`, `M`, `d`, `XR`) between its `Xy` and `Xd`; read as the art moving on, it lost the layer's opacity, so a layer at 17% drew opaque over the art under it and the file came in as its page. When the layer's last object is a gradient mesh, the mesh keeps its own state through the stroke style too (#4748). An object's own state block (`6 () XW`) still isn't the layer's. Of 408 users' files whose editing data was checked, 3 have such a block: an EPS that now opens from its layers 0.5% from its page (it was 18.8%), one whose layer now draws at 85% as its page does, and one whose layers are all at 100%; the others draw as before. Test `import::ai::tests::a_layers_state_keeps_through_the_stroke_style_written_in_it`; scores unchanged |
| 2026-10-30 | minor | EPS and `.ai` import: editing data whose type is in the legacy format (`To` … `TO`, as an EPS saved for Illustrator 10 keeps it, with no `/AI11Text` for the page's type to go in) is read through its layers when the page has text: its text objects are the layers' own, and the comparison with the page says whether the layers draw it. Before, such a file came in as its page ("its layers have no text objects to put it in"). Type the editing data keeps only as outlines (what the legacy format can't hold) stays outlines, with a note counting the page's text objects that are; a file whose layers have no text object at all still comes in as its page. Test `import::tests_native::type_in_the_legacy_format_is_the_layers_own_and_the_page_has_text`; checked locally against a user's files (of 6 such EPS that came in as their page, 3 now come in through their layers, within the comparison's limits; 1 is still refused by the comparison for art that isn't type, and 2 have their type only as outlines; no change in the other 284 EPS with editing data and 117 `.ai` files checked); scores unchanged |
| 2026-10-30 | minor | `.ai`/EPS editing data: an `Xy` right after a gradient mesh's `/End X!` is the mesh's only when its own `6 () XW` follows; when the layer's `LB` follows (directly or after the layer's `Xd` and `7 () XW`) it is the layer's, as before #4744, and the mesh keeps the state it had. Test `import::ai::tests::a_layer_keeps_its_own_transparency`; scores unchanged |
| 2026-10-30 | minor | `.ai`/EPS editing data: type on a path is spaced round curves as the file's own layout spaces it, closer round the outside and further apart round the inside, though its frame keeps no spacing: the Type on a Path Options › Spacing that does that is fitted from the layout's glyph positions, where it came in at the font's advances and ran on past where the page ends it. In 8 files of a user's set with type round curves (19 stories), the fitted spacing is a fifth of the line's ascent outside a curve (17 stories) and half of it inside (2), and the 4 files whose pages were measured space their glyphs as their layouts do. Own-fixture tests in `import::tests_native` and `import::ate`; scores unchanged |
| 2026-10-30 | minor | `.ai` import: a placed (linked) file whose data gives two placements is put at the corner of its box when that draws closer to the page and the layers still match it, not only when the first placement fails the comparison: a small logo in the wrong place differed too little to fail, and stayed there. Test `import::tests_native::a_small_placed_file_goes_where_it_draws_closer_to_the_page`; scores unchanged |
| 2026-10-30 | minor | `.ai` import: a file whose layers hold placed (linked) PDFs and no text object comes in from its layers when all of its page's type lies inside the placed files (at either of their placements): the PDF part draws each placed file, type and all, where the layers show its preview, so that type needs no text object. Such a file came in as its PDF part, saying its layers had no text objects for its page's text; type outside the placed files still needs one. Own-fixture test in `import::tests_native`; scores unchanged |
| 2026-10-30 | minor | `.ai`/EPS editing data: a gradient mesh takes the transparency (`Xy`) written right after its `/End X!`, before its `Xd` and `XW`, as a group takes the one after its `U`; it was read as the next object's, so a Multiply shadow mesh painted opaque white over the art under it, where the file's page shows the shadow. A user's file now draws such a mesh as its page does. Own-fixture test in `import::ai::tests`; scores unchanged |
| 2026-10-30 | minor | `.ai`/EPS editing data: a gradient mesh corner whose handle weights are 0 (one or both; the others are 1) is read like one whose weights are 1, so a mesh with such corners no longer leaves the whole file coming in as its page or PDF part; other weights still leave the mesh unread. Checked against the pages of two users' files: one opens from its layers 0.6% from its page, the other with 728 live meshes instead of its PDF part's 65,558 patches. Test `import::ai::mesh::tests::corners_with_handle_weights_of_zero_are_read`; scores unchanged |
| 2026-10-30 | minor | `.ai` import: a PDF part whose pages are cropped to the art is recognised in a `UserUnit` page's units too (the art's box in those units, the artboard not the page in points), and its type is read from the first page only, since every such page holds all the art again: the copies on later pages were moved as the first page's and could be put into the layers' text objects. A page cropped to the art is taken only when every page is that box. Tests `import::tests_native::a_user_unit_page_cropped_to_the_art_is_read_in_its_units`, `type_on_the_copies_of_a_page_cropped_to_the_art_is_read_once`; scores unchanged |
| 2026-10-30 | minor | `.ai` import: when the layers are compared with the page again with placed files at the corner of their box, the text objects the page doesn't draw are weighed with the images there, from the layers as read: before, the text an image covered at its first placement had already been left out, so a file whose image covered type only there came in without that type or as its PDF part. Test `import::tests_native::text_a_placed_file_covers_only_at_its_first_placement_is_kept`; scores unchanged |
| 2026-10-30 | minor | `.ai` import: type read from the editing data's text document keeps its case setting (character attribute 12: 1 Small Caps, at Document Setup's default size, 2 All Caps); it came in as typed, so a heading set in All Caps showed in lower or mixed case where the page draws capitals. Test `import::tests_native::type_from_the_text_document_keeps_its_case_setting`; checked locally against a user's files; scores unchanged |
| 2026-10-30 | minor | PDF import: a patch or triangle mesh shading of up to 16,384 patches comes in as gradient meshes (it was 4,096; Illustrator writes up to 14,355 in files users sent), and a stroke painted with one (how Illustrator writes a freeform gradient on a stroke) is the meshes clipped to the area the stroke paints, with its width, caps, joins and dashes; both came in as a flat grey. In two files of a user's set, the formerly grey area now matches a reference rendering in 99% of its pixels. Own-fixture tests in `tests::import_fidelity`; scores unchanged |
| 2026-10-30 | minor | `.ai`/EPS editing data: gradient meshes the reader marked unread, which made the whole file come in as its page or PDF part, are read: a mesh starts grey and its `/CS` is written only where it changes, before the corner it applies to (within a patch too), so each corner takes the space last set before it; named colours (`[c m y k /DeviceCMYK (name) /Process]` or `/Spot`) paint at the corner's tint and `/NChannel` inks overprint at theirs; meshes up to 128 patches a side and 16,384 patches are read (files users sent had up to 97 × 72). Ten of eleven such files from a user's set now open from their layers; meshes with handle weights other than 0 or 1 still don't. Own-fixture tests in `import::ai::mesh`; scores unchanged |
| 2026-10-30 | minor | `.ai` import: a placed (linked) file is put where its matrix takes the canvas point of art space's origin, and, when the layers then don't draw as the page, at the corner of the box it is written with, which many files use; six files of a user's set whose photos landed off their artboards now open from their layers. Own-fixture test in `import::tests_native`; scores unchanged |
| 2026-10-30 | minor | SVG export: axis-aligned rectangles are written as `<rect>`, circles and ellipses drawn with four standard arcs as `<circle>`/`<ellipse>`, straight lines as `<line>` and other straight-segment paths as `<polygon>`/`<polyline>`, at the written precision; a rectangle or ellipse with a dashed stroke, turned ellipses, curves and compound paths stay `<path>` (#4652); scores unchanged |
| 2026-10-30 | minor | `.ai` import: a placed (linked) file written as an object's copy on `%_` lines is read: its `%AI5_BeginPlace` and `%AI5_EndPlace` markers there were dropped, so the `~` that ends it was an unknown operator and the whole file came in as its PDF part; its preview's header, on a `%_` line too, is read. Own-fixture test in `import::ai::tests`; scores unchanged |
| 2026-10-30 | minor | PDF export: an opaque gradient mesh is written as one PDF Type 6 (Coons patch) shading (ISO 32000-1, 8.7.4.5.7) filling its outline, so viewers blend its colours smoothly instead of showing the bands and seams of the 8 × 8 flat quads a patch it was cut into; a file of 65,558 small meshes exports in 14 s instead of 56 s, at half the size. A mesh with see-through points is still written as quads. Own-fixture tests in `tests::mesh_export`; scores unchanged |
| 2026-10-30 | minor | `.ai` import with `textAs: "outlines"`, read from the editing data alone: a file saved without PDF compatibility has its type outlined too; threaded type flows through its frames before it is outlined, so each frame's outlines show the text it holds; and each outline group keeps its type's opacity, blending, opacity mask and effects. `.ai`/EPS import: a gradient-mesh corner holding anything but numbers is unread instead of read with the numbers after it shifted into its colour and opacity. Tests in `tests_aiimport.rs` and `import::ai::mesh::tests`; scores and hours unchanged |
| 2026-10-30 | minor | `.ai` import: a PDF part counts as an empty page only when nothing on it was skipped (an image that can't be decoded draws nothing too), so such a page keeps its notes and is checked against the editing data as before; with `textAs: "outlines"`, a file read from its editing data alone (an empty page, or the text-only placeholder of #1387) has its type outlined. Tests in `tests_aiimport.rs`; scores and hours unchanged |
| 2026-10-30 | minor | `.ai` import: a file whose PDF part is an empty page opens from its editing data where that reads, instead of opening blank; scores unchanged |
| 2026-10-30 | minor | `.ai` import: a file whose PDF part's pages are cropped to its art rather than its artboards no longer comes in as that PDF part (each page a copy of all the art) but from its layers, with its artboards, where they draw as the page does; own-fixture test in `tests_aiimport`; scores unchanged |
| 2026-10-29 | minor | `.ai` and Illustrator EPS import: the editing data is read up to an eighth of installed memory, from 512 MiB to 2 GiB on 64-bit builds (it was 512 MiB on every machine), so a layered file whose embedded rasters unpack past 512 MiB keeps its layers, groups and text on a machine with 8 GiB or more instead of opening as its page or PDF part (#3510, #4628). Measured: 1.1 GB of editing data peaked 1.1 GB above the start; data past the limit is still refused (a 2 MB file unpacking to 2.2 GB stops in under a second). 32-bit and web builds keep 256 MiB. Own-fixture tests `import::ai::tests::editing_data_past_512_mib_is_read_where_memory_allows`, `the_editing_data_limit_follows_installed_memory`; scores and hours unchanged |
| 2026-10-29 | minor | Affinity import: attached Recolor Adjustment (RcRA) layers import as color overlays with HSL lightness (#4420); scores unchanged. |
| 2026-10-30 | minor | EMF export: a pattern fill whose tiles stay apart (grid and brick tilings, art inside its tile) is written as one shape for each part of the tile, clipped once to what it fills, instead of every tile in a clip of its own; the picture is the same. A rotated two-colour stripe fill goes from 473 shapes and 246 clips to 2 shapes and 1 clip (122 KB to 61 KB; unrotated 99 KB to 33 KB). Tiles that overlap, hex tilings and tiles with strokes, images or nested clips are written as before (#3911). Tests in `crates/metafile/src/tests.rs` and `scene::merge_tests`; scores and hours unchanged |
| 2026-10-26 | minor | EPS Save and Save As: an opened EPS saves back to its own path as EPS, keeping the chosen artboard's page frame and transparent margins and the complete editable VectorCraft document; Save's TIFF preview is capped at 1024 px (Export keeps 2048); partly read, preview-only or damaged-editing-data sources still need confirmation before they are overwritten; Save As leaves out the export-only crop and selection options. Synthetic regressions in `tests::save` (engine and UI) and `dialogs::save_options::tests`, listed under [EPS Save and source protection](#eps-save-and-source-protection); it does not write Illustrator's own editing data (#868), and G9's real-file import fidelity is unchanged; scores and hours unchanged |
| 2026-10-25 | minor | `.ai` import: the editing data is read up to 512 MiB on 64-bit builds (the limit was 256 MiB), so a file whose embedded rasters unpack to 300 MiB or more keeps its layers, groups and text instead of opening as its PDF part (part of #3510); 32-bit and web builds keep 256 MiB. Own-fixture test `import::ai::tests::editing_data_past_256_mib_is_read`; scores and hours unchanged |
| 2026-10-25 | minor | `.ai` import: the `--` placeholder of a radial gradient's highlight (`-- -- angle length Bh`, a gradient without one) and the `XC` operator after a linked image's file name no longer send the whole file to its PDF part, so files with them keep their layers, groups and live text (#4176). A `--` anywhere else is still an operator the reader doesn't know. Own-fixture tests in `import::ai::tests`; scores and hours unchanged |
| 2026-10-24 | minor | EPS, EMF/WMF and legacy `.ai`: type with ruby (ふりがな) is written with the reading's glyphs where the canvas draws them (they were dropped); legacy `.ai` writes such type as outlines, since a text object can't hold ruby. Tests `eps::tests::ruby_is_written_with_its_type`, `tests_legacy_ai::type_with_ruby_is_outlines_with_the_reading`, `metafile::tests::ruby_is_written_with_its_type`; scores and hours unchanged |
| 2026-10-24 | minor | `.ai` import: an image larger than the editing data's reader takes (2^25 pixels, a halftone texture at print resolution) no longer leaves its layer blank: the file comes in as its PDF part, which reads larger images, with a note saying why (#1479). Own-fixture test; scores and hours unchanged |
| 2026-10-24 | minor | PDF export: a pattern fill or stroke is written as a PDF tiling pattern (ISO 32000-1, 8.7.3.1) of one period of the tiling, as the canvas repeats it, so grid, brick and hex tilings and overlapping tiles keep their look in a few kilobytes, and PDF import reads it back as one object with a pattern swatch instead of hundreds of tile paths (#3849). Patterns nested more than four deep, or with tiles beyond a billion points, are still written as their tiles, now with a warning. Tests: the issue's hatch round trip, a brick tiling read back against the canvas, the nesting warning; scores and hours unchanged |
| 2026-10-23 | minor | SVG: type written as outlines stacks each run's colour glyphs (bitmap images, COLR and SVG art) under the run's paint, as the canvas does, so a plain character set over a colour one stays on top; scores unchanged |
| 2026-10-23 | minor | PDF import: a line's spacing is measured from the file's own glyph widths, so type in a font the file doesn't carry, drawn with an installed font whose advances its widths round off (Helvetica on macOS: 2048 units an em), keeps one tracking value on its letters instead of a run per character (#722 follow-up); test with built-in Inter, independent of the fonts installed; scores and hours unchanged |
| 2026-10-23 | minor | SVG: attributes in other applications' XML namespaces (`plotter:pen="2"` with `xmlns:plotter`) are kept on the objects and layers they belong to, saved with them in `.vectorcraft` files and written back on export, each namespace declared once on the root under the file's prefix where it is free. SVG's, XLink's, XML's, Inkscape's and Sodipodi's own aside; at most 64 per object of at most 64 KiB each, with a warning for what is left out (the rest of #522). Scores and hours unchanged |
| 2026-10-23 | minor | PDF import: a line's spacing is measured from the file's own glyph widths, so type in a font the file doesn't carry, drawn with an installed font whose advances its widths round off (Helvetica on macOS: 2048 units an em), keeps one tracking value on its letters instead of a run per character (#722 follow-up); where the widths are a little off the font's advances (up to the 1% that still counts as the same font) and the differences add up along a line, each stretch of the line takes their share after every character, so its glyphs stay within a hundredth of an em of the file's in a run per stretch (one on ordinary text), instead of a run per character, untracked type points off, or a line-wide fit tenths of a point off; tests with built-in Inter and embedded Source Sans 3, independent of the fonts installed; scores and hours unchanged |
| 2026-10-22 | minor | EPS import: a CR LF ending after `readline` counts as one line ending (PostScript Language Reference §3.8), so counted metadata that follows it is no longer shifted by a byte and the editable vectors import instead of the preview; scores and estimates unchanged. |
| 2026-10-21 | minor | PDF export: flattening for PDF/X-1a and PDF/X-3 in a CMYK document draws the areas it rasterizes as ink amounts (a CMYK image), so a CMYK colour under an image with see-through pixels keeps its numbers, K included, instead of going through RGB and back (#2160); own-fixture test; scores and hours unchanged |
| 2026-10-21 | minor | EPS and `.ai` editing data: type with an art style of several fills or strokes, effects on a fill (Offset Path, Transform with copies, Drop Shadow, Gaussian Blur, Bas Relief), pattern and gradient fills, per-fill blend modes and a Warp comes in as type with that live appearance instead of its drawn look (outlines), the style read as a tree of filters; other objects keep the rule for plain styles. Point type whose frame has no matrix (written so by newer files) is read; such stories were left out. Where a styled object's drawn look lay, the page isn't held to look like VectorCraft's drawing of the style. `editingData: "always"` also opens an Illustrator EPS from its editing data. Own-fixture tests; a user's file used locally only; scores and hours unchanged |
| 2026-10-18 | minor | PDF import: invisible text (rendering mode 3, which carries a scanned page's recognized text) opens as type with no fill or stroke instead of being dropped without a word; when it can't be type (text opened as outlines, Type 3 fonts) it is left out with a warning. PDF export writes characters with no fill or stroke as invisible text in rendering mode 3, so a scanned PDF opened and saved keeps its searchable text, in PDF/X-1a and PDF/A too (#2675); own-fixture tests; scores and hours unchanged |
| 2026-10-18 | minor | DXF circular cubic paths export as native CIRCLE/ARC where stroke semantics permit (R13–2018 for weighted strokes; R12 weighted strokes remain POLYLINE); R12 stroked circles/arcs retain their POLYLINE width, and ClosePath geometry with an implicit closing chord is not promoted to CIRCLE (#1299); scores and hours unchanged |
| 2026-10-17 | minor | PDF import: text opens where the file draws it (#722): the font's kerning or none as the file followed it, word and character spacing and `TJ` adjustments kept per character as tracking, text rise as baseline shift in its line, vertical glyphs narrower than an em centred on their column, justified text boxes back as area type; fixtures written from ISO 32000-1 §9; scores unchanged |
| 2026-10-17 | minor | PDF Place and clipboard paste preserve live text; explicit outlines remain supported on Place. Synthetic regressions; scores and hours unchanged. |
| 2026-10-16 | minor | An Illustrator 3 file without prolog or layers (an image editor's exported paths) opens with its art on one layer instead of being refused (storytold/photocraft#6036); scores unchanged |
| 2026-10-16 | minor | EPS editing data: legacy mesh corners, vector opacity masks and compound member paint retained; raster page comparison filters minification without relaxing limits; scores and hours unchanged. Synthetic EPS/parser/minification regressions; user EPS/SVG/JPG kept local. |
| 2026-10-16 | minor | Batch exporting in Export for Screens (#1935): a file name pattern (document and item names, a counter, the date), folders per format, item or both, Layers and Selection tabs with thumbnails, EPS, AI and VectorCraft rows, a PDF row with printer's marks, and export presets (built-in Logo Package and Print-Ready PDF, saved ones); scores and hours unchanged (estimated) |
| 2026-10-16 | minor | `.ai` editing data: a rotated embedded image lands where its raster matrix puts it, not turned 180° around its corner; the legacy version 7 writer and its prolog write and draw rotated images with the same matrix (#2269). Scores unchanged |
| 2026-10-14 | minor | Legacy `.ai` of version 7 runs as a PostScript program: its prolog is a procedure set of VectorCraft's own that gives each operator the writer uses its meaning (paths, colours, compound paths, clipping groups, layers that don't print, images; gradients flat, type not set), and the page trailer's `annotatepage` (§3 of the specification) marks nothing; every file the writer's tests write is run through VectorCraft's PostScript reader and must draw what the document it was written from draws (#868) |
| 2026-10-14 | minor | SVG import: `:not()` selectors (#1799, #1557), stacked descendant selectors over deep nesting no longer stall (#1834, #1703), linked files within the automation roots again (#1870); DXF export writes the VPORT view direction once (#1789); nesting capped at 32 objects with self-using symbols and patterns opened without the offending instance (#1852); deep and self-referencing PDF and `.ai` data (#1871), decompression bombs (#1873), self-drawing brushes (#1872), hostile EPS, Affinity and native data (#1863) and huge ids (#1862) handled; a failed save is reported in a dialog and the old file is kept (#1865, #1685, #1693, #1694); type inside symbols gets its layout bounds back on opening a native file (#1833, #1738). Scores unchanged (estimated) |
| 2026-10-13 | minor | Pinned PngSuite HTTPS files verified by SHA-256 before publication; bounded downloads replace archive extraction (#1729). Scores and hours unchanged. |
| 2026-10-14 | minor | EPS import: a stitched shading keeps its hard colour changes (#1654, #1653); WMF/EMF import refuses an oversized embedded PNG or JPEG from its header, before any pixels are decoded (#1776); PDF open no longer takes exponential time on a crafted name tree with shared nodes when it looks for the editing data (#1781); The size limits on a native file's embedded data also apply to files read from memory, not only streamed ones (#1783); Saving over a private file on Unix no longer leaves a readable temporary copy beside it while the file is written (#1778); An Export for Screens suffix can no longer place files outside the export folder (#1777); Package refuses a folder where it would overwrite the open document or one of its linked files (#1786); ruzstd 0.9.1 fixes a decompression bomb (RUSTSEC-2026-0344) reachable from EPS/`.ai` and Affinity import (#1807); File Info dates are stamped only after a save succeeds, so a failed save no longer changes them (#1774); Linked files that change during a drag are updated after the drag instead of being missed (#1773); scores unchanged |
| 2026-10-13 | minor | SVGs that move objects with a CSS transform (`translate(100px, 0)`, `rotate(45deg)`) or style type with the `font` shorthand import as drawn (#1565); SVG symbols whose shapes use percentage lengths import at the size and place they are drawn, the percentages being of the symbol's `viewBox` (#1596); Inkscape's flowed text (`flowRoot`) opens as area type in its rectangle, a paragraph per `flowPara`, instead of being dropped, and a region that can't be read is left out with a warning (#1569, fixes #1568); The warning for an unsupported SVG filter names the filter, its primitives and the object, and says the object is drawn without it (#1599, fixes #1598); The pages of an Inkscape multi-page SVG become artboards, named by their labels (#1603, fixes #1601); SVG export with CSS classes or style entities stays fast in documents with many distinct styles (#1567); PDF and `.ai` import: evenly letter-spaced or tightened type on a path keeps its length along the path instead of closing up to the font's advances (#1586), and type on a path whose stroke is written glyph by glyph comes in as one text object with its stroke, not one object per glyph (#1585); The ICC profiles embedded in JPEG, TIFF and PSD exports have every tag on a 4-byte boundary (ICC.1 §7.1.2), so strict readers accept them (#1589, fixes #1584); GIF, PNG-8 and other indexed exports find each pixel's palette colour through an index instead of a scan, with identical output (#1576); Saving to a network drive on macOS falls back to a plain fsync when the share refuses a full flush (#1625, part of #1620; not confirmed on a real share), and a save still succeeds when a folder refuses the temporary file, the rename over the document or copying permissions: the content is written elsewhere first and copied in, and a failed copy keeps the temporary file and names it (#1649, part of #1620); A document opened by a relative path finds its relatively linked images, and `vectorcraft-cli convert` lists what reading the input left out as `importWarnings` (#1606, fixes #1604); A zero-length subpath draws its round cap as a dot and its projecting cap as a square, so dots in imported `.ai` and SVG files show (#1619, fixes #1613); scores unchanged (estimated) |
| 2026-10-13 | minor | PDF.R1: editable PDF import uses the shared pinned reader; layer and overprint scans preserve state across content windows and reject known incomplete input. Synthetic streaming, decoder-limit and dependency-source regressions added; scores and hours unchanged. |
| 2026-10-13 | minor | PDF.W1: PDF export and print composition use the shared guarded writer; drawing, colour policy and editable import stay app-owned. Metadata regression coverage and immutable dependency checks added; scores and hours unchanged. |
| 2026-10-13 | minor | Native documents with a lot of path data (traced or generated art, in layers, symbols or patterns) are saved as compact JSON, about a fifth of the size; small documents stay pretty-printed (#1492); Paste takes a PDF or EPS another app copied as editable vector art: from the macOS pasteboard (with SVG), EPS on Windows beside PDF, and `.eps` files copied in a file manager, with the new command `clipboard.importEps` (#1538, fixes #1499); Opening or placing a file with an image too large to decode says so, and the Links panel shows it on the row (#1540, part of #1479); a multi-artboard `.ai` with notes beside its artboards opens from its editing data, a page's art past its artboard no longer lying over the page before it (#1528); a `.ai` gradient whose stops are listed upwards keeps each midpoint on the stop that starts its part of the ramp (#1530); SVG text on a path follows basic shapes (circle, ellipse, rect, line, polyline, polygon) as their SVG 2 equivalent paths (#1531, fixes #1527); PDFs whose alpha soft masks are drawn as images import with the mask instead of empty art (#1551); EPS and PostScript type set in Type 42 (TrueType) fonts imports at its size instead of 1000 times too large (#1553); PDF and EPS import keep a clipping path whose bounding box covers the page but whose shape doesn't (#1544, fixes #1542) (the `.ai` row for #1528 was written by that PR); scores unchanged (estimated) |
| 2026-10-13 | minor | `.ai` read as its PDF part: a page whose art reaches past its artboard to the left (notes beside a design) moves right in the row until that art clears the page before it, so it is no longer taken for that page's art; a multi-artboard `.ai` with such notes opened as its PDF part ("the art on them differs from the page's"), without the art outside its artboards, and now opens from its editing data |
| 2026-10-12 | minor | Legacy `.ai` of version 7 (Save As › `ai` › Version: Legacy (version 7), #868): written from the published specification, keeping layers, groups, compound paths, clipping groups, gradients and images, one artboard per file chosen in an artboard picker; type as editable text objects (point, area and on a path, fonts by PostScript name, Windows-1252), or outlines (Text: Outlines); hidden objects, which the format can't hide, in a hidden layer of their own, omitted or made visible (Hidden Objects); images with see-through pixels flattened with the art under them or omitted (Transparent Images). The `.ai` reader reads legacy type (`To` … `TO`) and `Ar`. `vectorcraft-cli convert` takes `--ai-version 7`, `--hidden-objects` and `--transparent-images`; scores unchanged (estimated) |
| 2026-10-13 | minor | TIFF: grayscale files with an alpha channel or other extra channels place, relink and open, read as CMYK files with alpha already were (8 and 16 bits, either polarity; #1489, part of #1466); the rows for #1434 (strokes kept apart from a faded or masked fill, a `.ai`'s RGB numbers) and #1435 (SVG knockout groups without masks, `--decimals`) were written by those PRs; scores unchanged (estimated) |
| 2026-10-12 | minor | TIFF is available in Export for Screens and Asset Export with shared format settings; scores and hours unchanged |
| 2026-10-12 | minor | Affinity import: a text frame too short for its first line (a 64 pt title in a 54 pt frame) is made taller from its top, with a warning in the open result, instead of showing nothing (#1423), as `.ai` area type is (#1392); the spacing Affinity itself fits the line with isn't read; scores unchanged |
| 2026-10-12 | minor | `.ai` editing data: a compound path takes the paint, opacity, blend mode and fill rule of its last path (the last painted one when that has none), so gradient-filled compound paths no longer come in black, and paths grouped inside a compound path stay its paths (#1426, fixes #1410); hand-written editing data test; scores unchanged |
| 2026-10-12 | minor | `editingData: "always"` (`convert --editing-data`) opens a `.ai` from its editing data even where it draws differently from its page, which can be older, with a note |
| 2026-10-12 | minor | `.ai` editing data: an art style of one fill and one stroke (variable widths too) with an Outer Glow or Drop Shadow comes in as the object's own appearance; a clipping path's own fill paints under what it clips; a compound path holding its drawn look paints that look's paths apart; a group's own state keeps the current transparency |
| 2026-10-12 | minor | `.ai` editing data: gradients take their matrix (`Xm`, radials and skew too), focal point and the order of stops sharing a ramp point; gradient meshes come in as mesh objects; artboards keep their names |
| 2026-10-12 | minor | SVG export: knockout groups of opaque art are written plainly, without masks, so shapes meeting edge to edge leave no seam; translucent, blended, masked or brushed art still knocks out through masks |
| 2026-10-12 | minor | `.ai` read as its PDF part keeps the RGB numbers of its `ICCBased` spaces (`uncalibrated_rgb`, on for `.ai`, off for PDFs): a user-visible colour change for `.ai` files tagged with a non-sRGB RGB profile |
| 2026-10-12 | minor | PDF import: a fill that took its opacity or soft mask from a transparency group no longer absorbs the same-outline stroke drawn after the group, so the stroke keeps neither |
| 2026-10-12 | minor | A `.ai` whose PDF part draws only text opens from that part when its editing data can't be read, instead of being refused as saved without PDF compatibility: a page that states an art, trim or bleed box is art, not the placeholder (#1387); scores unchanged |
| 2026-10-12 | minor | PDF and `.ai` import, and placed PDFs, keep overprint: the graphics state's `/OP` and `/op` (ISO 32000-1 §8.6.7) become the overprint of fills, strokes and type, so a spot colour set to overprint still does after export; `/OPM 0` is reported in a note (#1388); scores unchanged |
| 2026-10-12 | minor | `.ai` editing data: a gradient with middle stops runs its whole ramp (#1390); type of objects with an appearance, of hidden layers and on later artboards goes to its own text object (#1391); area type in a frame too short for the fallback font shows its first line (#1392); scores unchanged |
| 2026-10-12 | minor | `.ai` editing data: placed (linked) files come in as linked images showing the preview the file keeps, so a file with them opens through its layers, with its guides (#1264); scores unchanged |
| 2026-10-12 | minor | PDF and `.ai` import: a shape painted with a gradient opens as one path with the gradient (#1304). PDF and `.ai` export: the constant alpha soft mask of a CMYK page with transparency is white (#1286, in part) |
| 2026-10-12 | minor | DXF reads control-point SPLINE closure (#1299 follow-up after #1320); open curves stay open and curves retained; rational/non-rational import and export versions regression-tested; scores/hours unchanged |
| 2026-10-12 | minor | A `.ai` opens on its trim boxes with its bleed boxes as the document's bleed; a PDF opened on its trim boxes too (#1266); a PDF saved with its editing data opens as the `.ai` does |
| 2026-10-11 | minor | An EPS keeps its own page and its stacked text strokes through its layers (#1102) |
| 2026-10-11 | minor | A `.ai` read as its PDF part keeps its artboard layout from the editing data (#1068) |
| 2026-10-11 | minor | Spot colours defined in Lab keep their Lab values, from the editing data and from a PDF part whose ink alternate is an ICC Lab profile (#1032) |
| 2026-10-11 | minor | `.ai` in PostScript form opens through its layers, also without its prolog (#1027) |
| 2026-10-11 | minor | `.ai` editing data: global process colours and pattern fills read, so they no longer drop sublayers (#1025) |
| 2026-10-10 | major | First checklist; moved the `.ai` editing-data scope from the ROADMAP's "Out of scope" here; added the user-reported `.ai` failures |

## EPS Save and source protection

Feature evidence updated 2026-10-26; scores and estimates unchanged.

EPS is offered by Save As, and an opened EPS keeps its own path for ordinary Save. Save writes
one artboard (the first by default, or the named artboard), retaining its page bounds and transparent
margins rather than cropping to the drawn artwork. The whole editable VectorCraft document remains
embedded in EPS comments, including other artboards. Save bounds the optional TIFF preview to
1024 pixels on its longest side (about 4 MiB of RGBA pixels), avoiding the roughly 16 MiB preview a
large artboard otherwise produces. Export keeps its existing 2048-pixel preview cap. Preview
format choices are unchanged; no public preview-resolution option exists. The EPS PostScript appearance still flattens
transparency; its existing warnings remain. This does not promise native Illustrator editing-data fidelity.

Cropped and selected-only EPS output remains available through Export. Save refuses those options.
An EPS opened from a preview, a partially interpreted program or damaged native editing data keeps
its source-loss warning: writing over that original requires explicit confirmation. File › Save uses
the same engine path and write-failure handling as other document formats.

Synthetic regressions: `tests::save::opened_eps_saves_to_its_own_file_with_editable_data_and_page_margins`,
`eps_save_keeps_all_editing_artboards_while_printing_one_page`,
`eps_save_supports_an_empty_artboard_without_cropping_its_page`,
`partially_read_eps_requires_confirmation_before_save_back`,
`eps_with_damaged_editing_data_requires_confirmation_before_save_back`,
`eps_save_bounds_large_page_preview_without_cropping_vector_or_editing_data`, and the UI regressions
`file_save_writes_opened_eps_back_without_another_save_as_dialog` and
`eps_save_as_keeps_page_options_and_writes_eps_without_export_only_switches`.