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alexm14
alexm14
Participant
February 19, 2026
Question

Adobe Acrobat / Illustrator printing & clipboard regression – Print to File behavior and broken copy-paste workflows

  • February 19, 2026
  • 2 replies
  • 1 view

I would like to report a recurring issue that affects professional workflows involving the latest version of Adobe Illustrator on Windows.

Context / Use case
Some of us intentionally keep Adobe apps fully up to date, while also relying on copy–paste via clipboard from Illustrator into LightBurn (laser-cutting software) in order to avoid unnecessary SVG exports that slow down production workflows. This workflow used to work reliably in earlier Illustrator versions, such as Adobe Illustrator 29.5 (build 29.5.x).

Issue - Illustrator clipboard regression affecting external production software

Recent Illustrator versions have introduced changes that break or destabilize copy–paste (clipboard) interoperability with external software such as LightBurn.

For many production environments:

  • Copy–paste from Illustrator directly into LightBurn is intentional and critical

  • Exporting SVG files for every iteration significantly slows down real-world workflows

  • Earlier Illustrator versions supported this clipboard behavior reliably

This creates a dilemma where users must choose between:

  • Staying on outdated Illustrator versions to preserve clipboard workflows
    or

  • Updating Illustrator and losing efficiency in external production pipelines

Why this matters
These issues do not affect casual users, but they have a real impact on professional, production-level workflows where Adobe software is used alongside hardware-driven tools (laser cutters, printers, plotters).

Many of us want to:

  • Use the latest Adobe versions

  • Maintain efficient, direct workflows

  • Avoid regressions that force unnecessary file exports or driver workarounds

Request
Please forward this feedback to the relevant engineering teams and consider:

  • Investigating Acrobat’s print behavior when interacting with Windows drivers

  • Restoring or stabilizing Illustrator clipboard interoperability with external vector-based software

Thank you for your time and for continuing to improve Adobe’s professional tools.

Kind regards,

Alexandra

    2 replies

    Monika Gause
    Community Expert
    Monika GauseCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    February 19, 2026

    Copy/Paste operations in Illustrator can be easily thorn off by third party tool or even the system interfering. If you have anything installed or activated in your system that messes with the clipboard, then this could affect Illustrator.

    The list of things interfering is pretty long.

      alexm14
      alexm14Author
      Participant
      February 19, 2026

      I already went through quite a few steps before concluding it’s actually an Adobe issue.

      At first, I assumed it was Windows, so I checked the clipboard in general. Copy/paste works fine between other apps, nothing else on the system is broken, and nothing Windows-related changed during testing.

      Then I looked at LightBurn. Importing SVGs exported from Illustrator works perfectly, and pasting vectors from other sources works as expected. So LightBurn itself isn’t the problem.

      After that, I focused only on Illustrator. On the same machine, with the same Windows version and the same LightBurn version, I installed multiple Illustrator versions one by one — starting from the newest and going backwards.

      What I found was very consistent:

      • Newer Illustrator versions → copy/paste into LightBurn fails

      • Going back version by version → same issue

      • Installing Illustrator 29.5 → copy/paste works immediately, without changing anything else

      To be sure, I repeated the test: reinstall a newer Illustrator version, the issue comes back; reinstall 29.5, it works again. That pretty much isolates the problem to Illustrator versions newer than 29.5.

      So at this point I’m confident it’s not Windows and not LightBurn — it’s a regression in Illustrator itself.

       

      Monika Gause
      Community Expert
      Monika GauseCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      February 19, 2026

      This is the list of things that have been identified to affect the clipboard:

       

      • Parallels Toolbox running with the Clipboard History
      • LogoTech Keyboard management software
      • TeamVewer Clipboard > Use Shared Clipboard
      • Apple iOS device simulator from Xcode
      • Windows Multi-clipboard
      • Windows Clipboard History
      • Clippy
      • Chrome Remote Desktop
      • Mouse Pointer Highlighter
      • AnyViewer
      • Pastebot app
      • Overzealous antivirus (Digital Guardian) as well as viruses that empty the clipboard
      • Vector Magic
      • Keyboard Maestro with Clipbboard History
      • Clipboard apps named »Paste« and »Ditto«
      • Windows 11 Multi-Clipboard
      • Deepl translator app
      • AMD Software Host Application 
      • An app called »Get Plain Text«
        m1b
        Community Expert
        m1bCommunity Expert
        Community Expert
        February 19, 2026

        Hi ​@alexm14 probably not this, but could you please confirm that you still have Preferences > Clipboard Handling > SVG checked on?

         

        Also, you could do the following test:

        1. Start with a document with a path item.
        2. Copy the path to the clipboard.
        3. Paste into a text editor, it should appear as SVG markup.
        4. Do steps 1-3 but in the old version of Illustrator. (You can install an old version via Creative Cloud app)
        5. Compare the two pasted SVG markup result.

        This might provide an insight into what has changed/broken.

        – Mark

          alexm14
          alexm14Author
          Participant
          February 19, 2026

          Hi Mark, thanks for the suggestion.

          Yes, I actually went through this line of testing as well while trying to isolate the issue.

          SVG clipboard handling is enabled in Preferences. I also verified clipboard behavior outside of LightBurn by pasting into other apps. The clipboard itself works normally at OS level.

          What really clarified things was testing multiple Illustrator versions on the same machine, with the same Windows version and the same LightBurn version:

          In newer Illustrator versions, the pasted data is not usable downstream, while in Illustrator 29.5, copy/paste works immediately again, without changing any settings.

          So even though the SVG option is enabled in both cases, the clipboard output clearly differs between versions. Reinstalling a newer version breaks it again; reinstalling 29.5 restores it. That’s what led me to conclude this is a regression in Illustrator’s clipboard SVG output rather than a preference or LightBurn issue.

          I agree that comparing the raw SVG markup between versions is a good idea but the version-based behavior is already 100% reproducible on my end. 

          m1b
          Community Expert
          m1bCommunity Expert
          Community Expert
          February 19, 2026

          I just now compared the SVG output of a simple square path item, copy-pasted from both Illustrator 30.2.1 and 29.5 and the actual SVG markup was identical. So that didn’t reveal any details.

          I believe when Illustrator copies to the clipboard (at least on MacOS) it copies in several formats and the app receiving the paste probably gets to decide which format to choose. Maybe Illustrator >29.5 added another format that LightBurn (unhelpfully) prefers?

          Anyway, sorry I couldn’t be more helpful.

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