@#%& Adobe!
 

I have left my firm lawyer job and started my own private practice, while working part-time as General Counsel for one of my (now) former clients. I'm currently in Beijing and need to get some quick business cards done. My company's graphic artist sent me an EPS file of our business cards, but I don't have anything that can edit it.

"No problem," I thought. I'll just buy and download Adobe Illustrator. I went to the Adobe site, paid my $600 with a credit card, completed the transaction and received a confirmation telling me I should receive the download link IN ONE BUSINESS DAY. I don't have one business day -- I need to get this stuff to the printer TODAY.

I'm really ticked about this.

A lot of people have had problems like this, and it is the main reason why Adobe has so many issues with piracy. I even know people who pay for it, and THEN download it off Bittorrent because Adobe has such a pathetic software sales system.

And BTW; congratulations on this decision!!!!

Possible solutions:

1. Have the artist send you a jpg file instead of an eps file.
2. Have the artist put it into a Word document and send that.
3. Download something like this to edit/convert the file.

4. Go to www.shareware.com and search to "edit eps" and check out the possibilities.

I'm no graphics guy, but one of the above will produce a quick and cheap solution. Good luck.

First, all good wishes to you in your new practice. I hope to hear more about it by P.M.

Next, since I am guessing there is no local equivalent of Kinko's, how about ordering from vistaprint and having them overnight it? Should be a lot cheaper than $600 even with the shipping and duty.

When I make purchases from the Adobe store they give me a license key and download link instantly. If there is a trial version, you download that and copy/paste the key into it, so there is no special download needed, you just need the license.

Thanks!

I imported the EPS file into Photoshop and edited it there (the fun part was putting in Chinese characters). I've saved the resulting files as EPS, PDF and PSD on the assumption that a local printer will be able to do with one of these formats.

Thanks!

I've already paid for Illustrator. The last time I bought an Adobe product on-line that I needed in a hurry (Acrobat), I had to wait 3 hours for the link and serial number.

Unfortunately, no trial version is available.

Congrats on hanging your own shingle!

Glad you got things taken care of...but I was going to say I'm sure plenty of FTers would have made the conversion for you in a flash if you needed the help. That said, I'll put away the torrent link I was going to PM <whistling>..... :o

try here:
http://www.adobe.com/downloads/

I have some experience dealing with Chinese printers and what types of files they prefer. So next time if you want something easy, like a business card
edited. Send it to me. It would probably take just a few minutes and be comped to a fellow FT member.^

Thanks -- I downloaded the GIGABYTE+ file (whew!). It worked just fine. Now I'm sorry I paid the $600. Oh, well. My serial number just came, so now I have a full, legal copy of Illustrator to add to my full and legal copies of Photoshop, Acrobat and Premiere Pro.

Thanks for the offer -- I appreciate it! Now that I have Illustrator, could you tell me what type of file is acceptable? The graphic artists sent me everything in EPS.

You can get a refund for the software.

Return an Adobe Product

Since you got the download, there is nothing to physically return. You just fill out a form.

now this thread is just the sort of helpful advice that i love FT for
(particularly the refund advice :D)
well done all ^^

my problem with adobe seems to be that when printing some words and lines are garbled when printed from my laptop to one printer. when i send it to my other computer and print it with different printer all is well. i guess it is a printer driver thing, but dont know how to cure it

generally they prefer ai (adobe illustrator for pc seems printers tend to use pc more than mac overthere) also include a jpg
for viewing to make sure that the ai file matches correctly. If its 4 color
process then a .tif file at 300dpi should also work for business cards. Make sure
the artwork is 3.625 x 2.125 so if it bleeds there is some margin.

That's a rarity in China..

When I buy things online or e-bank outside the US, I often VPN my connection. Foreign IP addresses tend to trigger fraud alerts, etc. Now, I try not to use a VPN when I do the actual download because I seem to take a performance hit.