Expert: Amy - 9/26/2006

Question
I'm use a Mac running the most recent version of OS X.  I don't
currently have Adobe Illustrator on my machine but I do have
a .ai file that I'd like to open, only to look at, not to modify.  
When I click "Get Info" on the .ai file in question I can see that
the little Illustrator icon is the yellow Adobe Illustrator icon and
has "AI7" in the yellow strip that runs across the icon.  In the
"Get Info" page under "Version" it says "Saved As v.7  Created by
v.10.0"
    Like I said, I just want to open the file up and view it.  I don't
need to make any changes to it.  Is there anyway to do that
using system software?  If not, how can it be done without
installing Adobe Illustrator on my machine?  What other pieces
of software allow the opening of .ai Illustrator files.
    Any help is much appreciated.  Y'all have a great day!

Answer
Well, do you have photoshop?  If so, you can open it with that.

Sometimes, you can also send AI files directly to PostScript printers with some success.

There also used to be a viewer utility called Ghost View.

If you've got a good connection and a lot of disk space, you could download the demo from Adobe.com

I can also open it for you if you like and send you a jpeg of it, send it to me at AmyLynPace @ yahoo.com  (remove spaces).


-Amy