is there anyway I could convert .ai files to .svg so that I can use them for Inkscape?

Which operating system are you using?

If you're comfortable with using a commandline, the 'ai2svg.py' section of http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/Tools#ai2svg.py might help you.

Good luck!

Hi everyone,

I have a few .ai files that I need to convert to a .svg format but I am not familiar with using a commandline.

I have been to the Wiki but the download file doesn't exist.
What should I do now?

I've had a look around the net and can't find any sure-fire way to do this. The URL I pasted earlier gives the code to do this (although it says it's not particularly great at it) but you need to have Python installed on your computer - which is a programming language.

In a nutshell if you're not comfortable with using a command line it's not going to be easy or quick.

I can run those scripts for you though, so I'd be happy to convert them for you if you upload them somewhere for me to download (or attach them here), or alternately email them to me if they're top secret!

Important thing to estabilish is what version of ai are they? they changed the format substantially between v8 and 9, and the way to import them depends on if their the old or new. If their the newer pdf based one then you can use the pdf import of SVN to open them, just do file open, and select ai version 9 as the file type. if its older ones you need to use the ai2svg script, or sk2 may be able to convert them with the uniconverter project they have, I'm not sure.