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Participant
November 1, 2014
Answered

Text Copied from Illustrator CC 2014.1.0 Pastes as Image

I have seen similar discussions but none of the answers are of any help to me as of today.

Background:

I am running OS X Yosemite 10.10

All my CC apps are up to date as of (11/1/14)

I am also up to date on all other software on my Mac

My goal:

Copy text from illustrator

Paste in Mail, TextEdit, and Notes as live editable text

Results:

Text pastes as pdf or some type of an image depending on the app

What it looks like:

I'll start from the beginning to avoid some questions later.

I open a new document in Illustrator.

These are the clipboard settings in my preferences.

Please Note - I have tried every combination of these settings. Turning them on and off one at a time and in combination does nothing to change the end product. I have turned them all off for this example, so as to not muddy the waters.

I type some text. I did not use a text box in this example. I just clicked on the page with the type tool and typed this line. There are no added attributes. You can see the character settings are the most basic. Again, please note - I have tried using a text box with the same result.

I use the type tool to highlight the text and then copy the text. I did not use the selection tool to select the text and copy.

This is what the clipboard looks like. Note that the contents is "text".

If I type text in PS (as an example) and copy to the clipboard it says "text". However, the text I copy out of PS I can paste anywhere as editable text.

If I type text in Notes and copy to the clipboard it says RTF. This text can also be pasted anywhere as editable text.

This leads me to believe that this is an Illustrator centric problem I am experiencing.

I click into the body of an email and paste. Looks fine, but when I try to click into the text (such as between the words "into" and "Mail") I cannot do it.

The line of words is highlighted and not editable at all.

If I right click on the image of the line of text and highlight "open attachment" you can see the clipboard pasted in as a .pdf and not editable text.

Interestingly, if I open a new note and try to paste the line of text, it also pastes as a .pdf but just the icon show up. Double clicking on the icon will open the text as a pdf in acrobat.

I did not have this issue until CC2014 updates were made. I would like to know if there is something that can be done or is this a bug in Illustrator. If it is a bug I don't want to spend time looking for workarounds. I will use another program when I know there will be a good deal of copy and paste work to be done. It's inconvenient for my older Illustrator files now have this issue when I open them in CC2014.

I know I can use the "paste and match style" but it's a force of habit to use the shortcut for paste. It's also a ridiculous change to Illustrator for the cut/paste to act this way. If it indeed was planned and not a bug, what would the benefit be?

If anyone has insight into the problem I am eager to know what's going on.

Finally, if there is no other way to fix this then can someone remind me how to customize the shortcut key combinations in Mail, Notes and TextEdit? I seem to remember (long ago) being able to customize certain shortcuts in some apps, but I never did it in anything but Adobe apps and even then it was CS5.

Thanks in advance for any help!

    meteritCorrect answer
    Participant
    July 13, 2016

    Hello, I've finally found away around this really annoying 'bug'/'headache' if you select the text (NOT with text tool just with the cursor) then right click and select 'Export Selection' ( http://i.imgur.com/gM0hIPR.png ) and export it in SVG format ( http://i.imgur.com/QaWiOYl.png ) then open what you just exported in your browser (Internet explorer, chrome ect) and you can copy the text from there ( http://i.imgur.com/YJuE8JX.png ). I was quite disappointed because even from trying to copy it from Adobe Illustrator into Adobe Muse all the programs would just freeze and close so I think calling it a 'suite' when you cant exactly simply copy and paste text from one to another is a bit of a cheek. Anyway hope this helped someone out there in the world

    -Tom

    46 replies

    Participant
    March 13, 2015

    I ran into this issue today. I wanted to copy text into an email – however I pasted it it stayed uneditable.

    The workaround was to open Text Edit and use the menu item 'paste and match style' (Command+Option+Shift+V) which pastes it as editable text. Then copy and paste that into mail.

    What a pain.

    If I try 'paste and match style' directly in mail from illustrator it pastes as a flipping pdf.

    I'm 10.10.2 yosemite and using Adobe CC

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    Participant
    July 1, 2015

    Do you know how to fix this on PC? I think that Adobe CC is making us to go through unnecessary headaches, I am unable to copy and paste at all with Illustrator CC, I have to rewrite everything because I can't paste from another programs either.

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    Monika Gause
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    July 1, 2015

    Please describe step by step what exactly does not work with which application. I just copied/pasted some text from Illustrator in to Word/Win.

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    Participant
    November 1, 2014

    Found the shortcut info in case anyone needs it.

    After this fix, Command+V will paste and match style and Command+Option+Shift+V will paste (and keep the style the copied text was in).

    • Open System Preferences
    • Click Keyboard
    • Click the Shortcuts tab
    • Click the "+" button
    • Select TextEdit
    • For Menu Title, enter exactly: Paste and Match Style
    • For keyboard shortcut, type a Command+V
    • Click Add
    • Click the "+" button
    • Select TextEdit
    • For Menu Title, enter exactly: Paste
    • For keyboard shortcut, type a Command+Option+Shift+V
    • Click Add
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    Participant
    October 20, 2023

    This works!  

    I can now copy text in AI with a Command C and paste in an outside app with a Command V.

     

    I use Adobe Illustrator CC

    MacOS Monterey

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