Some attributes may be lost in the translation. For instance, if you have a patterned fill, it will not appear when it is exported to FreeHand (see Figure 3). At first blush, you may think that you could simply apply the appropriate pattern within FreeHand, but be advised that patterned fills in FreeHand are not recommended for high-quality printing as they default to 72 ppi. If you wish to have a patterned fill, you're best off creating a tiled fill or otherwise creating the fill manually. Fireworks cannot have a stroke less than a pixel due to its resolution-dependent makeup ­ after all, you can't show half a pixel at any resolution. So you'll have the advantage of being able to fine-tune stroke widths once the graphic is in FreeHand. But the main thing you'll notice is the color shift. Fireworks is RGB, period (WMBP notwithstanding). Even when you convert a piece of art to a Grayscale GIF or use just two colors in the document, it's still an RGB file. Disregarding black and white files, FreeHand will use its RGB rendering to display the image, and you can bet that colors will look completely different. The colors are correct, however. If you want to assure yourself, use the eyedropper tool in either program and drag a color selection to the Color Mixer panel. ButS if the image is going to be printed, then it will be converted to CMYK and you will have a color shift, usually a dulling or desaturation of colors. There's nothing you can do about that. To allay your fears or concerns in FreeHand, you can choose Xtras>Colors>Name All Colors, then in the Swatches panel convert all those colors to CMYK. You'll see an immediate difference on-screen. Print the document and make any adjustments you think are necessary.

Another way to get graphics into FreeHand is to use Fireworks' Export menu. You can choose from PNG, JPG, GIF, TIFF, BMP, WBMP, and PICT. However, if you take this route you won't be able to edit the file in FreeHand because the file becomes bitmapped (see Figure 4). You will be able to use the Fireworks roundtrip editing button and edit the file back in Fireworks, though. The resolution of an exported object will remain the same. On the other hand, if you've dragged and dropped, copied and pasted, or used the Quick Export options, the artwork will take on the resolution of the FreeHand document. They don't make it simple, do they?

Export to Fireworks
Okay, now you have to switch hemispheres in your brain ­ we'll be talking about vectors originating in FreeHand and being introduced into Fireworks. In this case, you've designed a logo in FreeHand and now you want to place it on the Web. Going in the opposite direction, you can drag and drop, or copy and paste FreeHand artwork into an open Fireworks document. You can also choose File>Export, and choose from many different formats, but PNG, JPG, or GIF would work best if you're going straight to the Internet with the file. Our original FreeHand logo is shown in Figure 5. Because of the greater number of tools and tricks available, the logo is a bit more complicated, with tiled fills, a drop shadow made from a blend, and many layers.

You must pay attention to the condition of the artwork when you move it from FreeHand to Fireworks. For instance, if everything is ungrouped and you copy and paste or drag and drop, the art will land in Fireworks pretty much as it was in FreeHand. There's quite a bit of anti-aliasing that goes on, and any strokes that are thinner than 1 point become a full point in width ­ which can come as quite a surprise on detailed drawings or logos! You will be able to move, edit, or otherwise manipulate virtually all the FreeHand objects in your Fireworks document.

Figure 6 shows a drag-and-drop version of the FreeHand logo in Fireworks. Notice that a half-point white stroke around the text has gained weight ­ and doesn't look half-bad. Oddly enough, the text is softer, but the tiled background is harsher. Regarding the tiled fill, in FreeHand the tiled fill is simply applied to the ellipse, and there's no "overflow" of the fill. But Fireworks sees the entire tiled fill as a graphic inside a mask, so the fill object is much larger than the actual graphic.

Bitmap and vector effects carry over with the FreeHand artwork when you copy and paste or drag and drop. The effects are editable, but as you might expect, attempting changes to some objects with effects can give you a surprise or two. Those surprises can be remedied easily enough. One instance is a gradient fill that has a drop shadow. Changing a feathered effect to a hard edge results in the gradient's changing directions. It's nothing that can't be fixed quickly, but it's something to be aware of.

If you have increased the Raster Effects Setting in FreeHand to 300 ppi to accommodate drop shadows or other effects, those effects will acquire the resolution of the Fireworks document. If it is a brand new Fireworks document, that means the effects will drop to 72 ppi. You can enlarge the vector-based artwork in Fireworks with complete confidence that the image will not be distorted as a bitmap would. Any vector or raster effects you've applied to the path or object import fine, and will be scaled properly with the object.

Layered FreeHand artwork will retain the layers, but layer names are lost. Instead, objects from individual layers are given generic names such as "Composite Path" or "Group."

There's a big difference, though, if you group the artwork before placing it in Fireworks. It becomes a single flattened bitmap graphic that can only be reshaped or drawn over, and tiny details like thin strokes also disappear. You will not be able to edit any of the vectors that created the object, but bitmap editing is possible.