File formats

Table of Contents | Appendices

File formats

Supported formats

Electrifier Pro supports a wide range of file formats and content types, so you can seamlessly integrate all your existing files into your multimedia. Electrifier can import files in all the following formats:

Bitmap Graphics: Adobe Photoshop®
BMP
GIF
JPEG/JFIF
MacPaint®
PICT
PNG
QuickTime Image
SGI
Targa
TIFF
Vector Graphics: Adobe Illustrator®
LightningDraw(TM)
QuickTime Vector Graphic
Audio: AIFF/AIFC
AU
MPEG Layer 1
MPEG Layer 2
Sound Designer II
WAV

MIDI

Complete Roland Sound Canvas sound set
General MIDI
Karaoke MIDI
Roland GS Format extensions to General MIDI

Animation

Animated GIF
FLC/FLE
PICS

Video

AVI
DV
OpenDML
MPEG
QuickTime

Supported through third-party extensions:: OMF

3-D

3DMF

For more information

To learn how to import an actor into Electrifier Pro, see Importing actors in Working with actors section of Getting Started.

Importing issues

Electrifier Pro's file import is designed to be as transparent to the user as possible. Actors in any of the supported formats can be added to an Electrifier Pro movie without any need for advance file conversion. Most of the file types supported by Electrifier Pro can be stored as is and played back in a QuickTime movie; however, a few formats are explicitly converted into QuickTime files during the import process, so there may be some minor changes made to such files when they are imported.

Adobe Illustrator: Electrifier Pro imports Adobe Illustrator files as QuickTime vector graphics, which can be antialiased and scaled smoothly to any size. Vector graphics are also generally smaller than equivalent bitmap graphics. Electrifier's Illustrator importer supports complex files with large numbers of framed and filled shapes, layers, linear gradients, and process and custom colors in CMYK, HSB, and RGB modes. The initial version of the Illustrator converter does not support patterns, masks, dashes, radial gradients, or start caps, but we will extend this in a future version if there is user interest.

Because Illustrator files are saved as QuickTime vector graphics, placed bitmap graphics in the Illustrator file are ignored. If you are using bitmap graphics in Illustrator, you should bring them into Electrifier Pro separately so you can take advantage of Electrifier Pro's superior image compression.

Because the Web separates the graphical and informational functions of text, text is ignored. If you want to treat your text as a graphic, you should convert it to outlines in Illustrator before you import the file into Electrifier Pro. If you want to treat it as text, you should bring the text into Electrifier Pro on its own.

Due to a bug in QuickTime 3, some highly-complex framed shapes may crash when drawn in QuickTime. If you have problems with complex framed shapes in any of your files, you can either convert those frames to fills by choosing the Outline Path command from the Path submenu of the Object menu, or convert the file to a bitmap by choosing Export from the File menu.
LightningDraw: Electrifier Pro imports LightningDraw files as QuickTime vector graphics, which can be antialiased and scaled smoothly to any size. Vector graphics are also generally smaller than equivalent bitmap graphics. Because LightningDraw files are stored in the QuickDraw GX file format, either Apple's QuickDraw GX or GXGraphics extensions must be installed in order to import LightningDraw files into Electrifier Pro. Once the files have been converted to QuickTime vector graphics by Electrifier, they can be viewed by anyone, regardless of whether they have GXGraphics or QuickDraw GX installed.

Because LightningDraw files are saved as QuickTime vector graphics, placed bitmap graphics in the LightningDraw file are ignored. If you are using bitmap graphics in LightningDraw, you should bring them into Electrifier Pro separately so you can take advantage of Electrifier Pro's superior image compression.

Text in an illustration program can be used either for presenting textual information or as a graphic (or both: most well-presented text is also visually pleasing). Text in LightningDraw is automatically converted into outlines when you import it into Electrifier Pro. This allows the font variations and layout settings to be preserved exactly, but it increases file size and may be less readable at small point sizes. If you want text in your LightningDraw file to be treated as text in Electrifier Pro, you should import it separately (cut the text in LightningDraw, and paste it in as a new text actor in Electrifier Pro).
Animated GIF: Electrifier Pro imports Animated GIF files as QuickTime movies. Because of a difference in the way that the QuickTime and GIF formats represent transparency, transparent animated GIFs will have their background erased to white the first time they are drawn. This will be resolved in a future release of QuickTime.