Sample AI Files — Download Free Adobe Illustrator Files
Adobe Illustrator Artwork · .ai · MIME type application/postscript
Download a sample AI file for testing a design-asset pipeline, an upload validator or a preview generator. Since Illustrator 9, a .ai file has been a PDF document carrying Illustrator's private data, which is why these files open in any PDF reader as well as in Illustrator. Ours are valid PDF 1.5 documents with a proper cross-reference table, a compressed content stream and base-14 fonts, so nothing needs embedding.
Two page sizes are available: US Letter landscape at 612 × 408 points and A4 landscape at 842 × 595. Each contains filled paths, a stroked rectangle and live text, so a converter has real vector geometry to work with rather than an embedded bitmap. The document metadata states plainly that Pine & Birch generated the file and Adobe software did not.
Download sample AI files
Need one of every images format? Download the images sample pack (1.4 MB, one small file of every images format (13 files)).
Use these files from the command line or CI
Every URL is stable and CORS-open. Pin the SHA-256 in your test and you will know the moment a fixture changes.
# Download one file curl -O https://pnb-website-bucket.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/samples/images/ai/sample-vector-letter.ai # Verify it (SHA-256 is listed for every file above) shasum -a 256 sample-vector-letter.ai # Machine-readable index of every sample file curl https://pnb-website-bucket.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/samples/index.json | jq '.files[] | select(.format=="ai")'
AI format at a glance
| Full name | Adobe Illustrator Artwork |
|---|---|
| Extensions | .ai |
| MIME type | application/postscript |
| Container | PDF 1.5 (as Illustrator has written since v9) |
| Page sizes | 612 × 408 pt (Letter), 842 × 595 pt (A4) |
| Contents | Filled paths, stroked rectangle, live text |
| Fonts | Base-14 Helvetica — nothing embedded |
| Magic bytes | 25 50 44 46 ("%PDF") |
What people test with sample AI files
- Design-asset upload validation and format sniffing
- Vector conversion pipelines (AI to SVG, PDF or PNG)
- Preview and thumbnail generation for design files
- Print workflow and prepress testing
- Asset management systems indexing Illustrator artwork
Frequently asked questions
Is a .ai file really just a PDF?
Since Illustrator 9, yes, in the sense that the file is a valid PDF document with Illustrator's private data alongside the PDF content. That is why a .ai file opens in Preview, Acrobat and most PDF libraries. Older .ai files, before version 9, were pure PostScript and behave quite differently.
Did Adobe software create these files?
No, and the files say so. They are generated by our own script and the PDF Producer field names Pine & Birch. The Creator field identifies the Illustrator format, because that is how consumers detect a .ai file, and it states in the same line that the file was not made by Adobe software.
Will these open in Adobe Illustrator?
They open as PDF artwork, which is how Illustrator handles any PDF-compatible file, and the paths and text are fully editable. They do not contain Illustrator's proprietary private data stream, so they will not carry Illustrator-specific features such as artboard names or live effects. For testing upload, conversion and preview pipelines, which is what these are for, that makes no difference.
Can I use these commercially?
Yes. The artwork is simple geometry of our own making, the fonts are the base-14 set that needs no licence to reference, and nothing is borrowed. Use them freely, including in commercial products and public repositories, with no attribution required.
Are these AI files safe to download?
Yes. Every file is generated by our own open script from scratch — nothing is scraped or user-uploaded — and contains no scripts, macros or executables. The SHA-256 of each file is published on this page so you can verify what you received.
Can I use the sample AI files commercially?
Yes. They are free for any purpose, including commercial products, test suites, demos and redistribution, with no attribution required. There is nothing to license and no one to ask.
Can I hotlink these files or use them in CI?
Yes. Every link is a stable direct URL over HTTPS with Access-Control-Allow-Origin: * and long cache headers, so curl, wget, fetch() and test runners can pull them directly. A JSON index of every file is linked from each page (see the command-line section).
Related sample files
Free tools that work with AI
- PDF Converter — Turn a PDF into images or text, or combine images into a PDF — free, in your browser, no upload.
- Image Converter — Convert between AVIF, HEIC, TIFF, PNG, JPG, WebP, GIF, BMP and SVG. Most conversions never leave your browser.
Found a problem, or something that could be better? We read every message and we fix things quickly.
Testing a file pipeline? We build them.
Uploads, conversions, previews, document processing and media workflows are the kind of production systems Pine & Birch designs and runs for clients — which is why we needed these files in the first place.
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