Hi all,

I am sending the following today to Macy. I will try to send the same 

to the other two. But frankly, I would like to email all three of them 

as well. It is easier and I think equally likely to get attention. I 

couldn't find their email addresses on FreeFreehand.org. Does anyone 

have them?

Onwards,

Ernie

Gentlemen of Adobe,

After 20 years of relying on Freehand and Photoshop, I look with

trepidation at my new project which will occupy me for the rest of

this year. It will as always have FH at the heart of the design process.

But if I upgrade my computer or system will it still run?

With the aid of Freehand, I have designed about $15 million

in interpretive centre exhibits and not a few movies. I have 

occasionally

made forays towards Illustrator. But each time I have quickly

given it up and returned to Freehand for its speed, efficiency

and intuitive ease of use. I will continue with it for vector.

You are hearing from hundreds of us, so you know that there are

thousands of a similar mind. PLEASE reconsider your options:

Upgrade FH, make it open source or meld it with Illustrator -

to serve your design clientele with what they need, not what

you apparently favour as your benchmark vector software.

Simply because it works so well!

Sincerely,

Ernie Tomlinson

Interpretive Design Inc.

Versatility.tv

250 390 1047

Cel 729 1778

Closet FreeHand user? Please read.

A friend called me on the phone the other day. He's a principal creative director at a major U.S. advertising agency. He called after I emailed a link to my Real World FreeHand gallery (see: http://www.art101.com/freehand and feel free to pass it on). He liked the gallery and called to talk about the history and future of FreeHand. It's a long story, but at one point he said, "I still use FreeHand all the time. It let's me export stuff as Illustrator, so nobody at the firm knows. I'd be lost without it."

That got me thinking. I wonder about the scope of people visiting this forum. In particular, are you a closet FreeHand user? Do you use FreeHand in a working environment which officially shuns it? Come out of the closet! If you can't do that, at least go to http://www.freefreehand.org to privately join the cause. Help save the vector drawing program you'd be lost without.

I use Freehand in my work all day (packaging design & prepress for flexoprinting) we can not change to another program (i prefer to work in Freehand) because they give us problems with the postscript machines.

I receive work everyday that i have to redraw/prepare in Freehand Mx, many designers create work in illustrator with so many filters/effects that its impossible to control how its printed!!

It's a struggle at work because Illustrator its unusable and most designers don't even know how to create a job for print with quality, trapping, screens, etc.

Has i wrote in earlier post Freehand its simple and gets the job done, if i want to create things with filters or images i use photoshop,.. so Adobe i don't see why you had to kill Freehand we also have to buy your other programs!!

Adobe... Freehand, Photoshop, Illustrator, Indesign, Corel, Quark are programs that almost every professional uses either you want or not, and its a shame that they are not more compatible with each other!!

Hi all,

I sent the following to my (T-surname) Adobe recipient Macy before the 

deadline, along with a question for all about forwarding it by email 

to the other people at Adobe. I don't have their addresses.

But I never saw it appear on this list so I am trying again.

Best,

Ernie

Gentlemen of Adobe,

After 20 years of relying on Freehand and Photoshop, I look with

trepidation at my new project which will occupy me for the rest of

this year. It will as always have FH at the heart of the design process.

But if I upgrade my computer or system will it still run?

With the aid of Freehand, I have designed about $15 million

in interpretive centre exhibits and not a few movies. I have 

occasionally

made forays towards Illustrator. But each time I have quickly

given it up and returned to Freehand for its speed, efficiency

and intuitive ease of use. I will continue with it for vector.

You are hearing from hundreds of us, so you know that there are

thousands of a similar mind. PLEASE reconsider your options:

Upgrade FH, make it open source or meld it with Illustrator -

to serve your design clientele with what they need, not what

you apparently favour as your benchmark vector software.

Simply because it works so well!

Sincerely,

Ernie Tomlinson

Interpretive Design Inc.

Ernie Tomlinson

Versatility.tv

250 390 1047

Cel 729 1778

No time to add to my website, but it was designed in Freehand. Link:  http://versatility.tv/

The interpretive centre gallery at this link was designed almost exclusively in Freehand, occasionally including some technical drawings when i feel too lazy to use Vectorworks or Intaglio.

http://picasaweb.google.com/ericnosnil/QuatseSalmonStewardshipCentre1#

Ernie

Yes, yes yes.

I would pay. I love FreeHand more than any other program for layout and illustration, and have 10+ years of work in Freehand on my Mac.

It's been kind of slow around here this summer. How about these links to liven things up...

http://amplicate.com/rocks/freehand

http://amplicate.com/sucks/adobe

and for the undecided: http://amplicate.com/rocks/illustrator  or  http://amplicate.com/sucks/illustrator

Yes

Yes. Of course, as long as it is a viable update. Still an intuitive way to create as opposed to the stilted Illustrator. The difference is the powerful upgrades that have been done with Illustrator would need to come in to play for Freehand which feels like a "lite" version at this point and time.

The Free Freehand coalition has stated what the upgrades need to be so I will leave it at that.

I wouldn't care if there wasn't a single feature upgrade made, as long as it was compatible with the new MAC OS I would pay.

I still have less trouble dragging and dropping elements on the fly created in freehand than in illustrator, INTO PHOTOSHOP CS4!!

I was having exactly the same problems yesterday! Why can I still drag-and-drop more files into a (more than) three-year old app and I can't in a more up to date 'competitor'? Despite the 'lack' of support from Adobe, I'm surprised at how stable FH still is. The only issue I was having was that, as the files became more image-intensive, I was running out of memory, but I found some workarounds.

I haven't done this in a while, but I spent the entire day yesterday working in FH and it was an absolute joy. There's no way I would have enjoyed spending the whole day working in Ai. In fact, I wouldn't have even contemplated it as it frustrates me that much. All I use Ai for is exporting my FH files when I'm happy with the design - I export as illustrator8 and re-open in Ai to save out as CS4; that's pretty much it.

Pretty sad (and expensive) state of affairs when so much development money is spent on 'improving' Ai and promoting its innovation and all I do is use it as file conversion software! Shame I can't find a plug-in for that.

Let's face it, FH just works Adobe! Why can't you just accept that? As much as you and the design industry that supports Ai wishes we'd stop prattling on at how good FH is and succumb to your, why don't you acknowledge what's best for the community? And why, if we're saying we'll pay for an upgrade (no matter how minor), don't you want our money?

hello cyclopsdx,

hope you are well...

that is pretty much all I use ILLustrator for... exporting files from freehand that is....

but I noticed that you said you export your fhmx files down to fh8 before opening in ILL.

just in case you don't already know, you can now open MX files directly into ILLustrator...

just open ILLustrator...go to: file - open and navigate to your freehand file... (it even lets you open multipage documents & gradients) WOW! AMAZING! those adobe boys are sure working hard trying to please us freehanders

hopefully this might save you a little more time... and let's face it, that is something we all need more of when dealing with that programme.

cheers,

mark

Sorry, I will be out of email contact this coming week. I will reply to you upon connection. Thanks - Jim

Hi Norbert..

no, it seems the CS4 I have actually does open gradients from FH and allows you to edit them as well...very strange

it doesn't make sense... but since when has illustrator made any sense.

cheers,

mark

hey mark - thanks for the heads up. i'm finding i have to use a number of workarounds to achieve the right import/export that i need dependant upon the complexity of the file i'm working with. even with my experimenting, it's still quicker than creating the whole job in Ai!

norbert - i'm still using CS4. no plans to upgrade my design suite at present. simply can't justify the cost for what would effectively be the same apps with extra bells and whistles. CS4 Ai has never worked properly for me and crashes everytime i use it. i followed the correct adobe procedures for uninstalling CS3 when i purchased CS4 and it's never worked properly - but that's another story for another thread on this forum!!!. you know what they say - you're only as good as your last piece of work - hence i'm not upgrading to CS5 anytime soon and i still use FHMX.

and yes, i can get gradients working in CS4 for me. sometimes i have a problem but for the most part i can resolve it, hence playing with workarounds. i guess you could always (perish the thought) do most of your work in FH and then finish the file off in Ai and add the gradients there?

Amen, cyclopsdx, amen. An associate at my studio has an antique registered version of AI10 which is only used to convert FHMX art to AI for those clients who require it. FH is used for all our vector art and most page layouts. Check out our Real World FreeHand gallery at: http://www.art101.com/freehand/index.html (and I'd enjoy seeing samples of your work). Cheers and keep the faith.

Hey guys!

I have to join into the conversation as I have a perfect example of how badly Illustrator mangles FreeHand artwork. Sure, I know how to overcome problems by converting text to outlines but take a look at the hilarious results if I don't...

Exhibit #1:

My original FreeHand MX logo for a TranceDance Organization. Contains text wraps, custom brushes, blends, and several layers.

Exhibit #2:

My native FreeHand file opened up in Illustrator CS4. WHOA! Where did half my text go? Why is it all rotated? Where is the custom brush stroke on the snake?

Exhibit #3:

My FreeHand file exported to AI 7 format and then opened up in Illustrator CS4. This should work better. YIKES! Where did the client's name go? Why is the text on top of each other? (well, at least the text isn't rotated and text-on-circle reads correctly. Hmm, my custom brush stroke is back too.)

Pretty revealing!  Thankfully, I didn't use gradients because AI can read them sometimes but I know blends will always work. Like Eddie says, working in FreeHand for a day is a joy.

One has to wonder why Adobe thinks we should migrate to AI-CS5 instead of a new or "fixed" FreeHand. If any of you are like me with tons of legacy FreeHand files, this is the perfect example of why these folks are either programming idiots or simply sadists towards their FreeHand users. This thread is about "Would You Pay for a FreeHand MX upgrade?"  With the kind of service they show converting FreeHand files, my money is on getting FH the hell out of Adobe.

— Mark

Don¹t you think Adobe does this purposely to invalidate the worth of

Freehand? Of course they do. Adobe, like Microsoft is one of those company

that will use a heavy-handed, by any means necessary approach to ruling

their perceived world.

Sad to hear it put this way but you are probably right. Do they have no integrity left?

Reading through the Photoshop CS5 forums, freezes and crashes are rampant. Adobe says it's Apple's fault. I have to wonder if your analysis applies there too?