Does anyone know of a Mac-compatible program that can convert .eps and .ai files to .svg? I want to edit them in Inkscape, but it won’t open either of these formats, and I don’t have Adobe Illustrator. I also tried Scribus because I heard it can import .eps and save as .svg, but while it worked for a few images, most I tried were missing a lot of elements…it often only imported the background.
GraphicConverter, maybe?
That was actually my first thought, but unfortunately it didn’t work. While GraphicConverter can both read EPS and save as SVG, it rasterizes the image in the process. 
Thanks for the suggestion, though.
That’s what I was afraid of. Hmm. That’s the one problem with vector formats. They are more complicated to deal with (especially correctly, as you note), so fewer tools even handle them. Mac landscape for vector has been pretty sparse ever since a certain company destroyed Macromedia. While certainly not cheap, I always found Freehand to be by far the most the more elegant solution.
Anyway.
Solved it. Turns out Preview can do the job—it opens EPS files, and then you can save them as PDF, which Inkscape can open, all the while preserving the vector data! Preview to the rescue!
Ok—so I just found an even easier way. Just install Ghostscript, and Inkscape opens EPS and AI files directly.
I’m too ashamed to admit how long it took me to find this today… 
Ah, I even meant to ask if you had Ghostscript properly installed, because I know Inkscape is fairly neutered without that UNIX package. Anyway, glad it’s working!
I didn’t suggest the Preview thing, because doesn’t that totally slaughter the vector data? I had in mind that it added way too many control points and such, needlessly increasing the size of the file and making it impossible to edit later on.
I just launched Freehand 10 on my MacBook Pro, and it was ready for work in less than 10". Illustrator CS5 did the same in about 38". Apart for some exoteric features missing in Freehand, they do the same things (exceeding my professional needs). Illustrator still misses something that I used a lot with FH - alignment of free objects with a locked object.
As you say: anyway.
Paolo
I hadn’t noticed anything like that, but I didn’t really get into editing with the Preview way before I found Ghostscript. Maybe I’ll experiment with it a bit, though I guess it’s an immaterial issue now.