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ComeHitherDesign
ComeHitherDesign
Inspiring
October 22, 2020
Question

Swatches not importing into indesign from illustrator via clipboard

  • October 22, 2020
  • 3 replies
  • 393 views

When I cut and paste elements from Illustratror to InDesign the item would appear as an editable shape, and its colour would be added to the Swatches.

 

Using the latest versions of Creative Suite — the object gets pasted as an uneditable vector shape and it’s colour is un-getable — it doesn’t appear in the swatches and the eyedropper tool won’t pick it up either.

 

Have looked at changing clipboard settings but no change…

 

Any ideas?!

This topic has been closed for replies.

3 replies

ComeHitherDesign
ComeHitherDesignAuthor
Inspiring
October 22, 2020

The colour wasn’t defined as Swatch in illustrator, having added it to the palette it appears now to bring the colour into the swatches. Never had to do that before…

Steve Werner
Community Expert
Steve WernerCommunity Expert
Community Expert
October 22, 2020

I'm a swatchaholic! I always create swatches for my colors so they can be edited and reused so I wouldn't have encountered that problem. Makes sense to me that it only will copy swatches that are already created.

ComeHitherDesign
ComeHitherDesignAuthor
Inspiring
October 22, 2020

Likewise — but for this to work I also had to define the swatch, which is a standard CMYK split, as a spot colour for it to import via the clipboard. I then have to redefine it as CMYK once it was captured by inDesign. Something is definatley up here…

 

(been using Adobe software since 1993)

Steve Werner
Community Expert
Steve WernerCommunity Expert
Community Expert
October 22, 2020

If you try a simple object you'll probably see that it works.

ComeHitherDesign
ComeHitherDesignAuthor
Inspiring
October 22, 2020

I’m cutting and pasting a single square, that then appears in inDesign as an uneditable embedded vector graphic shape inside a standard image box. 

Steve Werner
Community Expert
Steve WernerCommunity Expert
Community Expert
October 22, 2020

Cut and paste of objects from Illustrator to InDesign only works for relatively simple objects (less than a few hundred anchor points). If it's more complex than that, it's not editable and the swatch values are not copied. It's always worked this way from the beginning of when the copy feature was included.

 

 

ComeHitherDesign
ComeHitherDesignAuthor
Inspiring
October 22, 2020

I’m cutting and pasting a single rectangle!

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