Parse Adobe Illustrator (.ai) files with Python

python vector adobe-illustrator
jack picture jack · Nov 21, 2011 · Viewed 10.5k times · Source

I'm using Python under Linux. Could you please recommend some libs or command line tools to parse Adobe Illustrator (.ai) files which I can use in my Python program?

What I need to do includes:

  1. Convert .ai files to .jpeg or .png images
  2. Extract text from .ai files
  3. Read .ai files information (e.g. version number, something like psdparse for AI)

I need it under Ubuntu so I cannot use win32com

Answer

Paulo Scardine picture Paulo Scardine · Jan 13, 2012

I think many modern .AI files are just extended PDF files. A quick test would be: rename the .AI to .PDF and see if your PDF reader can open it. If so, there are plenty of tools to deal with PDF files.

If you have older .AI files then you can try Uniconvertor. It is Python, perhaps you can import some functionality from it.

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