Adobe Illustrator Artwork

File Format
Name	Adobe Illustrator Artwork
Ontology	Electronic File Formats Graphics Adobe Illustrator Artwork
Extension(s)	.ai
PRONOM	fmt/565, others
Released	1987

Adobe Illustrator Artwork (AI) is a proprietary vector graphics format used by the Adobe Illustrator program.

The original format of these files was known as "PGF", but it was later embedded in a PDF wrapper for compatibility with that format. The format is also related to Encapsulated PostScript (EPS), and some versions of the file format are made to be compatible with that. Some forms of the file have multiple versions of the data embedded in it for multi-format compatibility.

Identifiers

Version	Ext.	PRONOM
1.0 / 1.1	.ai	x-fmt/20
88	.ai	fmt/417
3.0 / 3.2	.ai	fmt/418
4.0	.ai	fmt/419
5.0 / 5.5	.ai	fmt/420
Japan	.ai	fmt/421
6.0	.ai	fmt/422
7.0	.ai	fmt/423
8.0	.ai	fmt/557
9.0	.ai, .pdf	fmt/558
10.0	.ai, .pdf	fmt/559
11.0	.ai, .pdf	fmt/560
12.0	.ai, .pdf	fmt/561
13.0	.ai, .pdf	fmt/562
14.0	.ai, .pdf	fmt/563
15.0	.ai, .pdf	fmt/564
16.0	.ai, .pdf	fmt/565

Specs

• 1998 Adobe Illustrator file format specification

Sample files

• https://telparia.com/fileFormatSamples/image/adobeIllustrator/

Other links

• Wikipedia: Adobe Illustrator Artwork
• Wikipedia: Adobe Illustrator
• Adobe Illustrator File Format Summary, from the Encyclopedia of Graphics File Formats
• The Adobe Illustrator Story (video)
• Adobe Illustrator to HTML open-source script