Editing .emf files

grastgirl

I have some enhanced windows metafiles that I want to edit, I've been using Adobe Illustrator 8 at work, but I finish today, so I need to find something free that will allow me to do it. Ideally I want to be able to convert them to .jpg or similar as well.

Any good ideas?

isofa

Soon as your convert, or rasterize them into a bitmap format, such as JPEG (or better to use lossless TIFF) you'll loose the ability to edit the vectors and scale up without any loss of resolution - you'll then just have a bitmap, at whatever resolution you chose to rasterize at (do this in Photoshop at a high-res for the best files). Obviously you can edit the bitmap just like any image, but you loose the vectors.

You may find some older free versions of CorelDraw or Canvas on cover discs, and no doubt other vector drawing packages too.

Best free bitmap editors are: The GIMP, Paint.Net

grastgirl

Blimey, that was quick!

I pretty much want to do one edit and then convert them, although I will keep the original files as well just in case.

So you're saying I need a vector drawing package? I'll look out for one in the PC mags then.

Ta

isofa

If you want to edit the lines, fills, etc, move the lines, change the fills, intersections etc, all the features you would in a vector drawing package (Illustrator, Freehand, Corel Draw, Canvas etc) then you need a vector "drawing / illustration" package. Once you convert "rasterise" to a bimpap, then you can edit every pixel like a photo image (in Photoshop etc), but you can't stretch a line, so the fill goes with it etc, change strokes, widths etc, you have to manually edit the actual pixels.

DrawPlus from Serif is free as is the open source InkScape.

Might be worth saving the files as EPS and AI formats too, these are very widely supported.

superscaper

isofa wrote: »

Might be worth saving the files as EPS and AI formats too, these are very widely supported.

Except for Inkscape unfortunately. It won't open or edit those filetypes. In fact I'm kind of looking for a decent .eps editor or convertor (freeware), to convert to SVG. I've tried Openoffice Draw but it doesn't seem to open eps files properly (they open as blank with just the file title).