Publisher to Illustrator

[BillJ]

Our house artist who has very little training is having an issue importing Publisher files into Illustrator. When she imports them, the text comes up as rectangles. the photos seem to import without problem. Te person who created them has passed away so i don't know exactly how they were created. The only solution I have found online is Pub2Id, but it is expensive and for the few times we have to deal with this management won't pay for it.

I'm an Rip and equipment guy so I'm not an expert on this. Any help would be appreciated.

[davidmwe]

How about Publisher to InDesign?

I do not know of any Publisher to Illustrator converters, but we, Markzware, have a Publisher to InDesign conversion tool which may assist you?
See:
Markzware PUB2ID v3 (Convert Publisher to InDesign) Product Page

Friendly Regards,
David Dilling
Markzware (makers of PUB2ID)

[DCurry]

Your best bet if you don't want to buy a plugin is to get the Publisher file into an intermediate format that Illustrator can read. You will still likely have text problems, though.

For example, if you can make a PDF from the Publisher file, you would be able to open it in Illustrator. If the fonts are embedded in the PDF and active on the computer you are using Illustrator on, you might get lucky and everything will look fine. If there are heavy text edits to be done, it may be problematic because the text will no longer be words and paragraphs but just collections of letters.

Maybe you can find someone who has the plugin and pay for them to convert the art for you. At $199 for the plugin, though, it could pay for itself in just a few uses.

[DCurry]

Another thought - if you do not need to edit, you could just place the aforementioned PDF as a linked graphic.

[Lukas Engqvist]

Yes it is cheaper to pay for the pluggin than the therapy of the prepress person who will have to hack their way into what publisher can create. I remember trying to clean up a relatively simple graphic, a text with a gradient shaded triangle in the a template background. We were close to print on a large project and this was an add that was to be included… the biggest problem was I didn't have the font and thought it could be solved. Liability and who is responsible if the output differs from what the customer means was what they handed you could also be an issue. Good luck.

[almaink]

I have the plugin but it's not all that great. Publishers idea of transparency doesn't convert well, and there are issues with fonts as well. The Pub to PDF then fix the PDF using Pit Stop or another editor is easier for most Pub files IMO.

[DCurry]

Another question for the original poster - why does it really need to be in Illustrator? I'm sure I'll catch some heat for this statement, but it is possible to get perfectly decent output from Publisher directly, as long as it is a more recent version (last 5 years). At my old shop we got Pub files on a fairly regular basis and while it takes a little bit of learning to figure out exactly what needs to be done, it's not nearly as bad as it used to be. PDF is the great equalizer - do as much as you can in the native app, then make a PDF and finish off any necessary editing with PitStop or Acrobat's built-in editing tools.

The key to remember with Publisher is that by default it thinks you want to be in RGB mode, so before generating the PDF you should change it to CMYK mode or whatever you need. For better RGB-to-CMYK conversion, leave it as RGB and convert the PDF to the proper color space.

I'll take a Publisher file over PowerPoint any day.

[mattbeals]

that sounds familiar...

[maynardsayswhat]

Another thought - if you do not need to edit, you could just place the aforementioned PDF as a linked graphic.

This is how I survived a short stint helping out a friends copy shop which dealt mainly with nonprofessional folks. Also works for PrintMaster Gold =)

[FlexoGrunt]

We typically have the customer export a PDF then place it into Illustrator (as a link). Once it's placed I use flatten transparency which will make almost everything into vectors for you (including embedded fonts that you may not have). It works great for our segment.