How to save SVG artwork to library

Forum|Forum|8 years ago
July 27, 2017
3 replies
3975 views

I searched and found a similar question and it turned out to be a missing feature in AI, but this was months ago and it was in relation to Draw so I though it might be worth checking for sure. My apologies if this is a duplicate...

When I create a drawing in Illustrator, drag it into my library and then drag it back out, it is no longer editable directly unless I click the Edit Original button (which is not ideal since it opens it on a new file tab and requires extra steps to select/copy/paste it back onto the artboard I was working on).

I noticed I have one drawing, which I imported from Capture, that is directly editable as soon as I drag it out, i.e. I have access to each individual shape in the drawing. This drawing has an SVG icon in my library window, whereas all of the drawings that I dragged into the library have an AI icon -- and these drawings can only be transformed as a whole.

So is there a way to save a piece of artwork to my library and have it retain all of its component shapes when I drag it out of the library onto an artboard?

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Correct answer Larry G. Schneider

To have an editable version of the Library Asset, hold down the Opt(Alt) key while dragging to the new file.

Ton Frederiks

Community Expert

What Larry said, or Ctrl click on the library item and choose: Place Copy

Theresa J

Community Expert

Actually I think the behavior you describe makes sense. When you put something into a Library and then drag it back into another document a dynamic link is created with the original that lives in the cloud. When you go to edit original you are editing the image in the cloud (or your Library). You can edit and when you save your edits, the file will be updated in your library, and can easily be updated in any documents where it is placed.

The problem is really with the svg files. They can not be dynamically linked because once you open an svg file in Illustrator it will save edits as an AI file. There is no way to save back over the original svg file. So when you drag an svg file to an illustrator document you are esssentially creating a new document.

Now to answer your original question.

There is no way to go directly from Illustrator to a library with an svg file. You could do a save as and save the file as an svg to your hard drive. Then view your libraries in a browser and upload the file there. You can get to the browser view of libraries by first going to adobe.com and log into your account. From there you will find a Libraries link in the panel on the left of the screen.

C

ChirstohperAuthor

Participant

This is good to know, thanks. I'm still trying to get used to the dynamic links and how everything works together. I've been using Photoshop and Premiere for years but I'm just now starting to actually use the CC Library and Illustrator. Amazing stuff (when you know how to use it)!