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K
Kate_PassionART
Participant
April 26, 2020
Question

Custom brush libraries don't load into Brush Library

  • April 26, 2020
  • 2 replies
  • 1884 views

I'm a lady in Scotland tearing my hair out because Illustrator 2020 doesn't load or keep brushes that I create or others I've got from Adobe Stock, etc.  I've followed instructions and while the new brush library is shown there are no brushes in it to be selected. I can create a new brush and save it but if I add anything to it the existing brushes are overwritten.  I'm hoping this is simply me not understanding and has a fix.  Any help would be very welcome.

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2 replies

Ashutosh_Mishra
Ashutosh_Mishra
Inspiring
May 30, 2020

Hi there,

 

Thanks for reaching out. I hope your issue is resolved now.

We'd appreciate if you mark the earlier response correct when you find the solution. You may also share your solution here if you used any other workaround to resolve the problem. This will help other users with the similar situation.

If you still have any issue, feel free to reach out. We'll be happy to help.

 

Regards,

Ashutosh

Monika Gause
Community Expert
Monika GauseCommunity Expert
Community Expert
April 27, 2020

Attachments unfortunately don't work in the forum. Please upload it to Dropbox or the like and post a link in here.

 

As for libraries and the brushes panel:

Brushes are document based. There is no application-wide brushes panel.

You can add brushes from a library the the current document's brushes panel, but not vice versa.

You cannot add brushes to a brushes library.

When you create a new document it does only contain brushes that are in the "New document profile" (a kind of template) that you used.

You can open a brushes library (they are plain AI files) and add brushes to it. But that does not work when you load it as a library.

Even if clipart files are called brush libraries there are not necessarily actual brushes in them. Sometimes they just contain the base artwork and you have to make the actual brushes yourself.

K
Kate_PassionARTAuthor
Participant
April 27, 2020

Hi Monika - thanks for your quick response.  Hope this finds you well. 

I don't have access to Dropbox unfortunately.    From what you say it seems I've misunderstood how brushes work.   I did rather think that when I open any document I could choose the brush I want from the selection in the brushes window.  If I open an existing or create a new document I can see which brushes are available to me from the brushes window and this corresponds to the presets brushes directory in C:drive.  

Although I've created a new folder with the custom brushes I bought from CC and it is shown in the brushes window when I click on it it only shows a single brush from another set.  I did this after following training videos and it works for others.

Also there is the option for User Defined brushes  - can you explain how that works.  If I can't save them and make them available outside of a current document does that mean each time I want to use a custom brush in a separate document I'd need to recreate it?

And what I don't get is why there is the option from within the brushes library to select "Other Library" if the system doesn't allow you to use other brushes?

 

Sorry for so many questions.

Monika Gause
Community Expert
Monika GauseCommunity Expert
Community Expert
April 27, 2020

"User defined" shows brushes libraries that are installed in a certain folder on your system.

Please see here for the location: http://vektorgarten.de/illustrator-settings.html#14

 

If you want to load brushes from other files (that are located anywhere on your system), you need to load them as libraries via the brushes panel menu: Open library > Other library

 

It will then open in its own window and you can use the brushes from there.

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