Ok. I know what you're thinking... Surely there's a freeware out there to do this. Ahem, i think so, but this is what I've discovered quite some time ago and willing to share this 'discovery' with you all. This tip might be useful for graphic and/or web designers. If you already know this, please bear with me. It was really fun finding this out. Ok, Corel Wordperfect 11 users out there please take note, if you are ever in need for a .wpg clipart of yours, yeah the one you find on the Wordperfect CD, converted to an Adobe Illustrator (.ai) format for some reason, maybe to place it into the brochure / website you're designing - here's the trick. Assuming you do have Adobe Illustrator version 8 or higher. 1. Identify a clip art, insert it as usual in your Wordperfect document. Enlarge it if you can. 2. Save (or export), errr... something like that - to PDF. 3. Open that PDF file using Adobe Illustrator 4. Edit your newly converted Clipart. 5. Save it as an .ai file - or any other to suit your project. Well, that's just about it.
Hi. A cropped screen shot is a raster image with limitations. Converting it to pdf and opening it in illustrator makes it a vector graphic - editable. Able to change colors, reshape, add points to paths, etc.
Ancer : Although I haven't tried what you just said about PDF file import to an AI artboard. I don't think that would work since when you import it to AI, the file and images inside it will open as <image> or link layers and not paths. Although your best option is to use a mac, screenshot and convert to postscript. Import in AI and convert all layers to paths and anchor points.
jayL, many thanks for ur reply. I suggest you should try it when you can. It's strange cos AI didnt do this. Hmmm. Maybe because it was "imported to (placed)" and not "opened"? And to be fair, I havent tried this... But whatever it is, am happy to have shared the results of my experiment on DP Happy Christmas and New Year to you too...
I may be doing it incorrectly or your step is for Wordperfect only? I've opened PDF files lots of times in AI, and AI would always use the PDF's graphic to an image sub layer.
I see where you are coming from. I appreciate your comments. Yeah, this is specifically for Wordperfect especially after "publish to pdf". And you are right, image sub-layers are created. Depending how detailed the clipart is, the more sub layers there'll be. I still find this technique very useful for preparing my artwork for the 4 color print process containing these rgb based cliparts converted to cmyk, since WP and Word were'nt made for that purpose. (Correct me if I'm wrong here) I noticed that AI supports the placing of WMF but not WPG - I wonder why. The version of Illustrator I use is 10. Does Illustrator CS support WPGs? I think I'll stop here for now. In the mood for Christmas