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Participant
October 27, 2021
Answered

Adobe Illustrator will not open PNG files anymore

Illustrator has stopped letting me open PNG files. I never had an issue before until maybe a few days ago. I've tried every way I can think of to open it; right clicking on the image in the desktop, file open in illustrator, etc. No matter what I do, the file just will not open. Illustrator doesn't even give me an error or anything, the image simply just does not open in Illustrator.

carrieanneo7Correct answer
Participant
October 27, 2021

I actually think I found the issue after reading another post where a user couldn't open any type of files. It stated that Adobe searches for a printer when opening an image (not sure why) but the printer that was set as my Default printer no longer works. Therefore, Adobe couldn't connect to it. I changed my default printer in Windows settings and my PNG files will now open.

64 replies

Participant
February 26, 2025

samething happens to me, how to resolve this 

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Participant
January 7, 2023

im having this same problem ive tried uninstalling and reinstalling and the photo/ file would open up a white blank sheet. ive read some on here that its a bug. idk though, have you had any luck?

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Participant
January 7, 2023

i started having this problem today. i tried opening a photo with the place feature and it just pops up as a white screen once i open the image.

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Monika Gause
Community Expert
Community Expert
January 7, 2023
Participant
November 8, 2022

OMG I am having the same problem and I don't have a "default printer". Does anyone know how to fix this? It only became an issue of Illustrator not opening .png as of a week or so ago. And yes it is TOTALLY messing up my work flow to have to open every PNG in photoshop and resave as a JPEG.

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Participant
November 8, 2022

same, wtf. anyone have a good solve?

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Participant
October 7, 2022

Has anyone found a better solve for this yet? I don't have a "default" printer at the moment and taking the extra step to export png files as jpg or tiff if need transparency is slowing down my workflow tremendously. I never had a problem until a few weeks ago. 

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Participating Frequently
October 18, 2022

did you ever manage to solve this? this is suddenly happening to me as of this week

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Ton Frederiks
Community Expert
Community Expert
October 18, 2022

What version of Illustrator do you use?

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carrieanneo7AuthorCorrect answer
Participant
October 27, 2021

I actually think I found the issue after reading another post where a user couldn't open any type of files. It stated that Adobe searches for a printer when opening an image (not sure why) but the printer that was set as my Default printer no longer works. Therefore, Adobe couldn't connect to it. I changed my default printer in Windows settings and my PNG files will now open.

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Ton Frederiks
Community Expert
Community Expert
October 27, 2021

Good to hear you solved it that way.

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Ton Frederiks
Community Expert
Community Expert
October 27, 2021

And File > Place?

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Participant
February 26, 2025

its not working, File>Place

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Anubhav M
Community Manager
Community Manager
March 5, 2025

Hello @Athira._K.Suresh9248,

Would you mind sharing more details, like the version of the OS/Illustrator, if Illustrator behaves this way with all files or when working with files from a specific folder and a small screen recording of the problem, so I can investigate this further?

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Anubhav

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