Participant

Answered

How to import workspaces in Illustrator 2021?

Forum|Forum|5 years ago
January 13, 2021
7 replies
21211 views

Hello,

The last time I used Illustrator, it was the version previous to 2021. I was able to import and export workspaces from the Workspaces menu in that version. Now I've got Illustrator 2021, and I can't find a way to import a workspace from the Workspaces menu or the preferences, and I can't find anything online that says that others have had the same problem. I also tried copying the .exec file of my custom workspace into the folder with the rest of the workspaces, but it seems to be a different file type than the pre-installed ones, and it's not showing up in the Illustrator application.

Does anyone know what might be wrong, or what I can do?

How to

Correct answer LynxKx

Open your previous Illustrator version or other computer you want to pull workspaces from,

go to Edit > My Settings > Export Settings save file locally
Open Illustrator program you want to save the new settings too
go to Edit > My Settings > Import Settings and selct the file you saved earlier

D

danielfeary

Known Participant

It's so annoying, right? Just updated Illustrator, now I've got to completely rebuild the workspace as I had it…

Doug A Roberts

Community Expert

You can still copy old workspaces from the preferences folder, or if you use 'Import Previous Settings' in the CC app when updating they will be copied for you.

LynxKxCorrect answer

Inspiring

Open your previous Illustrator version or other computer you want to pull workspaces from,

go to Edit > My Settings > Export Settings save file locally
Open Illustrator program you want to save the new settings too
go to Edit > My Settings > Import Settings and selct the file you saved earlier

G

gaiagraphics1

Participant

LynxKx,

So simple and easy. Thank you!

Anshul_Saini

Community Manager

Hi All,

Sorry about the trouble. I am afraid sync settings are no longer available in the current versions of Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign. For more details, you may check out this help article (https://helpx.adobe.com/creative-cloud/help/sync-settings.html).

However, you can try to copy the Workspaces folder manually from the following locations and paste it to the exact location on your other machine or another version of Illustrator installed on your device. I hope it helps!

macOS:

~/Library/Preferences/Adobe Illustrator <version> Settings/en_GB/Workspaces
~/Library/Preferences/Adobe Illustrator <version> Settings/en_GB/Modified Workspaces

Windows 10:

C:\Users\<your username>\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Adobe Illustrator <version> Settings\en_US\x64\Workspaces
C:\Users\<your username>\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Adobe Illustrator <version> Settings\en_US\x64\Modified Workspaces

Thanks & Regards,
Anshul Saini

hellopaul4

Inspiring

That doesn’t work either (on the latest Beta); importing the Settings from a previous version does nothing and copying the workspaces to that location also does nothing. Updating to a new version seemingly ignores all my prefs that I’ve finessed over the sad years of using this awful app in an attempt to make using it less of an ordeal and even, on rare occasions, moderately tolerable.

I’ve just launched Illustrator Beta...what version? Oh - it doesn’t show it in the startup screen because some idiot on the Adobe marketing team said it shouldn’t show the version, for no reason whatsoever other than he/she was a total ****. Ah - there it is...’About Illustrator’, hidden away somewhere in the middle of the Help menu, not where it is on every other Adobe app. (Oh yes - I forgot - Illustrator is a vile misfit in the Adobe world; a long-forgotten relic, developed nowadays only by marketing ‘people’ whose sole job is to annoy us customers). And here I am, staring at a screen devoid of all the useful palettes/tabs etc. that I’ve carefully positioned across my monitors on previous versions, with seemingly no way to bring back those miserable days of ploughing through this hideous app unless I spend several hours positioning the useful tools and closing all the pointless ones.

Oh yes...”30.7 11 (64-bit)” the well-hidden ‘About’ screen unhelpfully says.

Anubhav M

Community Manager

Hello @hellopaul4

I’m sorry to hear about your experience. I tried exporting my workspace, keyboard shortcuts and materials from Illustrator 30.5.1 using the Edit>My Settings>Export Settings menu to the latest Illustrator (beta), and it worked fine.

Could you please provide more details about the version of Illustrator you’re importing your settings from, the version of the OS installed, and a brief screen recording of the problem, so we can better assist you?

Looking forward to hearing from you.
Anubhav

D

default8xj78ia1y4ea

Participant

Select Window > Application Frame to toggle it on or off. The Application bar across the top contains a workspace switcher, menus (Windows only), and other application controls. Choose Window > Workspace > Manage Workspaces.

Anshul_Saini

Community Manager

Hi @BKramer01 @imageprospd,

Sorry for the delayed response. I would request you to share a few more details like:

@imageprospd, please confirm the Operating system.
Exact versions of Illustrator from which you want to import? (For, e.g. 25.3 to 25.4 or 24.0 to 25.0)
Do you want to import workspaces from a different system?
Do you want to import them from the previous version to a newer version?
Are your workspaces missing after updating? If yes, did you get the Import settings option dialog box?

I will be looking forward to your responses.

Thanks & Reagrds,

Anshul Saini