The situation you will be in
You designed in Illustrator. The shop runs CorelDRAW. Or you designed in CorelDRAW 2024 and the shop runs X7. Or you used Inkscape and the client's other vendor wants "the AI file". Every one of these conversations happens weekly, and getting it wrong costs a reprint.
Here is what each format actually is, and what survives the trip.
CDR
CorelDRAW's native format. It is the working currency of the Indian print trade, of signage, of garment and screen-print units across South and Southeast Asia, and of thousands of small shops elsewhere. Learning CorelDRAW is a genuinely good career decision for that reason alone, and almost no free course teaches it.
It is also the least portable format in the business. It is proprietary and undocumented, and the internal structure changes between versions. An older CorelDRAW generally cannot open a file saved by a newer one. That is the single most common file failure in the trade.
The fix is in your Save As dialog: there is a version dropdown. Ask the shop what they run and save to that version. Saving down may drop newer effects, so check the result rather than assuming.
Inkscape can import many CDR files through the libcdr library. It usually gets the geometry and often gets the colours; it frequently gets text, effects and some fills wrong. Useful for rescuing artwork, not for production.
AI
Illustrator's native format. Since version 9, an .ai file is a PDF with Illustrator's private data attached — but only if "Create PDF Compatible File" is ticked in the save dialog. That checkbox is why other programs can open your AI files at all. Untick it and the file gets smaller and becomes unreadable outside Illustrator. Leave it on.
EPS
Old, still requested, and worth understanding for one reason: EPS does not support transparency. Export something with a soft shadow, a blend mode or a partially transparent object to EPS and it is flattened — chopped into regions, some of them rasterised. That is where the mysterious grey rectangle behind a logo comes from. EPS is fine for flat line art and a poor choice for anything modern. If someone asks for EPS, ask whether a PDF would do.
SVG
Open, text-based, a W3C standard, and genuinely good. It is the right format for the web and for handing artwork to a developer. But it was designed for screens: no CMYK, no spot colours, no bleed, no overprint, no output intent. A print shop asking for SVG usually just means "send something I can open". Send a PDF as well.
This is the actual lingua franca, and it is the answer most of the time. A PDF exported with vectors intact opens in Illustrator, Inkscape, Affinity and CorelDRAW with varying degrees of editability, and goes straight to a press when exported as PDF/X — which is the next lesson.
Practical rule: send a press-ready PDF unless someone specifically asked for something else. Keep your working file in your own program's native format. Ask the shop what they can open before you start designing, not after you finish.
What round-tripping loses
Moving a file between programs is lossy in ways that are quiet:
- Inkscape SVG filters do not survive into Illustrator
- Illustrator gradient meshes and some live effects do not survive into Inkscape
- CorelDRAW's lens, envelope and contour effects do not survive anywhere unless converted first
- Text keeps its characters but loses OpenType feature settings, and reflows if the font is missing
- Live blends, symbols and linked images become embedded or vanish
If artwork must survive a trip intact, do three things before exporting: convert effects to curves or objects, outline the strokes, and outline the display text. You lose editability and you gain certainty. That is usually the right trade for a file leaving your hands.
The tools, honestly
- CorelDRAW — its real advantage is that the shop already has it, but it is also legitimately good at the job: multi-page documents, print merge, imposition, and a workflow built around getting things onto material rather than onto a screen. Paid; Corel has offered both subscription and one-off perpetual licences, so check what is currently sold.
- Illustrator — the reference tool, what agency job ads name, the deepest type and colour handling. Subscription only.
- Inkscape — free, GPL, mature. Drawing, node editing, booleans, type on a path, tracing, DXF and PDF export are all there and all good. Weaker points: colour management for press has historically been thin because it works in RGB internally, though recent releases have added CMYK handling, so check your version rather than trusting this sentence. It also slows down on very heavy files. For the CMYK gap, pair it with Scribus.
- Affinity Designer — reads PSD, AI and PDF, has live non-destructive booleans, and had a one-off price for years. After the Canva acquisition the apps were relaunched in 2025 with free access and a paid tier for some features. Confirm current terms before planning around it.
- Penpot — free, open source, runs in a browser, aimed at UI work rather than print, but usable and it opens on a machine that cannot install anything.
The fully free press chain works: draw in Inkscape, place in Scribus, export PDF/X from Scribus. Nothing in this course requires a payment.
The message to send the shop
Before you design anything:
Finished size, number of colours, material, quantity — and: which software and version do you run, and do you want PDF/X-1a or X-4?
Four lines. It prevents most of what this lesson is about.
Before you move on