EPS from AI PC. Problem file

[annc]

A designer has sent me (twice) an EPS that originated in AI 9 for the PC (I opened it in a text editor to get this information).

But I can't view it in InDesign Mac CS, FreeHand Mac v.10, or FreeHand PC v.10, all of which complain about a missing screen preview. I can print it from FreeHand PC, but it complains that there's a problem with the file and it may not print correctly.

FreeHand 10 Mac offered to recreate the screen preview from the PostScript, but then still showed the grey box.

Is there anybody here with AI (preferably PC) who is prepared to try to open this file? Franca has tried to open it in CorelDRAW 9 and 12, with no success.

The file is about 1.6MB in size (which is somewhat large for an EPS of a simple logo).

If you are prepared to try this, please e-mail me on ann dot clarkson at dressageit dot com.

For those of you who recall my earlier problem with a local designer who goes postal easily, this is from him. He's being very pleasant (I haven't mentioned the two words, Macintosh and InDesign, that set him off), but I am unwilling to go back to thim for a third attempt in case I have to mention them to him.

Thanks.

[Stephen Owades]

I'll be happy to take a look at this file, and I've sent you an email to that effect.

[annc]

I'll be happy to take a look at this file, and I've sent you an email to that effect.Thanks, Stephen. I've sent you the file.

[Stephen Owades]

Thanks, Stephen. I've sent you the file.
I've sent you several converted versions of your file. There does seem to be something strange about the file you sent; InDesign CS on Windows was also unable to place it, complaining about the preview. But I was able to open it without problems in Illustrator CS, and to save it in various formats that should be useful to you.

I have a suspicion about the cause of the problem you encountered, by the way. If you received the file in zip-compressed form, and extracted it on a Mac as a "text" file, the decompression program (StuffIt or whatever you used) may have removed all the linefeeds. This is useful if the file is indeed text, making a PC file's standard carriage return/linefeed pairs into Mac-style carriage returns only, but if there's a binary section in the file (such as the header of this file), it may become unreadable when the linefeeds are removed. Try extracting the file again from the original zip with your decompression program set for "binary" instead of "text" and see if the file you get is usable as is.

[annc]

I've sent you several converted versions of your file. There does seem to be something strange about the file you sent; InDesign CS on Windows was also unable to place it, complaining about the preview. But I was able to open it without problems in Illustrator CS, and to save it in various formats that should be useful to you.

I have a suspicion about the cause of the problem you encountered, by the way. If you received the file in zip-compressed form, and extracted it on a Mac as a "text" file, the decompression program (StuffIt or whatever you used) may have removed all the linefeeds. This is useful if the file is indeed text, making a PC file's standard carriage return/linefeed pairs into Mac-style carriage returns only, but if there's a binary section in the file (such as the header of this file), it may become unreadable when the linefeeds are removed. Try extracting the file again from the original zip with your decompression program set for "binary" instead of "text" and see if the file you get is usable as is.It was sent to me as a straight EPS, not compressed in any way whatever.
Thanks for all the help. The PDF will do the trick.

[Stephen Owades]

It was sent to me as a straight EPS, not compressed in any way whatever.
Thanks for all the help. The PDF will do the trick.
I've done a few more experiments, and I now know what happened to the original EPS file and the ones I sent to you. This may be useful to others, so I'll explain it here.

My attachments were sent in "Quoted Printable" MIME form, which means the ordinary line endings within text are treated as line endings. Sent from PC to PC, a carriage return/linefeed pair is received without alteration, but when Mac email programs see text attachments they change the line endings to carriage return only. In Outlook Express, which I use for sending email, EPS attachments are always sent in this text-ish form, which is fine (they're unaltered) when they're received on another PC, but cr/lf pairs are changed when they're received on a Mac.

Digging into Outlook Express, I do have an option of choosing UUencode as my mail format, which sends the attachment in a way that won't be mangled by the Mac. But that's not easy to change, and can't be set for an individual message.

It would be best to have these files sent to you in zipped form, which all email clients know to treat as binary. I don't think any Mac unzipping programs will mangle the line endings, either. A zip-encoded version of an EPS file should work fine for you. I'm sending you the last batch of EPS files again in zipped form; let me know if they work for you that way.

[annc]

A zip-encoded version of an EPS file should work fine for you. I'm sending you the last batch of EPS files again in zipped form; let me know if they work for you that way.They are fine, Stephen, thank you. I can't rememer the last time I had an EPS e-mailed to me, actually.

Thanks for all the hard work. Pity it was such an ugly logo. <g>

[Franca]

Pity it was such an ugly logo. <g>Naturally - one wouldn't have to go through all that trouble for a pretty one. There must be a Law written about that somewhere....

[Stephen Owades]

They are fine, Stephen, thank you. I can't rememer the last time I had an EPS e-mailed to me, actually.

Thanks for all the hard work. Pity it was such an ugly logo. <g>
The odd thing is that the scissors image (the "X") in that logo is a bitmap, which doesn't fit well with the crisp look of the type and rules. With the artwork included, there are other bitmapped images so the scissors may fit in better, but as a logo alone it looks odd to me that way.

[annc]

Naturally - one wouldn't have to go through all that trouble for a pretty one. There must be a Law written about that somewhere....I think it's because most logos are ugly, so the law of averages works. <g>

[annc]

The odd thing is that the scissors image (the "X") in that logo is a bitmap, which doesn't fit well with the crisp look of the type and rules. With the artwork included, there are other bitmapped images so the scissors may fit in better, but as a logo alone it looks odd to me that way.It is indeed odd, and makes the whole thing hard to read. I've been watching it for a long time, and itching to fix it (she's a local hairdresser, so I see it a lot. When I was asked to visit her about new designs for stationery, she said that she wanted a 'new, more sophisticated look' and I sort of hoped she realised the logo wasn't working. But no such luck.

However, she's a delightful person, and very good to work with, so I'll turn a blind eye to the logo, now I have a working copy of it - thanks to your efforts.