Help converting old Freehand files

Question

I have several old Freehand files, to be honest I don't
remember the versions, but they were definitely before 9. I'm on a
PowerMac running Freehand MX and Illustrator CS3 and do not have
the Classic 9 operating system still on this machine. Am I
completely out of luck?

Answer 1

> She hacks the old files, tricking AI CS3 into believing
they are FH7 files.
My apologies. The hack trick doesn't work for old FreeHand
files but does
work for old AI files.
Since you are using a PowerMac (which probably came with a
version of Mac OS
9) I suggest installing OS9 and running FH8. A time-limited
FH8 demo and a
batch processing script is is available here.
http://www.adobe.com/go/tn_14946
From the same technote:
"Identifying FreeHand 3 and 4 files
On Windows, FreeHand 3 files will have a .fh3 extension, and
FreeHand 4
files will have a .fh4 extension. On Macintosh, a FreeHand 3
file will have
a file type of FHD3, and a creator of FHA3. For a FreeHand 4
file, the file
type is AGD1, and the creator is FH40."
In the event your files are older than FH3, I found FH 5.5
did a good job of
opening and translating FH2 files. Open in FH5. Save as FH5.
FH5 files can
then be opened in FH8 and saved as FH8 files.
Older FH installers are available here:
http://www.freehandsource.com/
http://www.freehandsource.com/_frames/_news/_fhnews/fh_installers.html
I found a link to a FH 5.5 demo here. Download at your own
risk.
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/4204/gtools.htm
Judy Arndt